September 15, 2022 - Springfield to Carthage, Missouri

After a quiet night at the church, we were up and ready to roll by 8:15. Father Ray and one of the parish volunteers came over to give us a blessing for safe travels today and throughout the rest of our trip.


We learned that Madonna Del Ghisallo is the patron saint for bicyclers, so we had her on our side today, too! It's a good thing, because today was a LONG and hot day!

The roads today varied from really good, to mediocre, to really horrible.


Fortunately, there hasn’t been much traffic on any of them, so Tobey (and me in the RV) were able to pick and choose which side of the highways we wanted to ride on! We both saw several hawks today. One swooped in front of the RV and landed on a low tree branch. Tobey spotted one that wasn’t so lucky and had crashed on the road.

Along Highway 96, we stopped at one of the Sinclair Stations which is now a museum and gift shop. We were both impressed with all of the memorabilia the guy had. We wished the gas pump was operational and the price was still 15 cents a gallon!



As tempting as it was, Tobey decided not to trade his bike for this one!

Not too much further down the road was another old Route 66 stop. None of the building were open, but it was interesting to see.

And another "Root 66" sign!

As much as Tobey and I both love dogs, they were a big problem today. I wasn’t far behind him on one road and saw three farm dogs come racing down their driveway toward him. I blasted the horn for a couple minutes non-stop and it distracted them enough Tobey was able to pedal on with all of his limbs. He motioned me to go ahead, and when we caught up later, he told me he was chased three more times! Once he got off his bike and put it between him and the dog and kept yelling at it until it went away. YIKES!

Our lunch stop was in Miller, Missouri. He had been pedaling almost 40 miles by then. I drove through the downtown and spotted a pavilion put up by the local Lions Club. Awesome!

There were lots of other sights along the way. Some of them pretty funny!

We took a few more stops to cool down and get more ice water as he made his way west to Carthage. We detoured north quite a bit because of road closures on Highway 96 (and it was busy with no shoulders!). He rolled into Carthage about 5pm after riding 78 miles today.