I stayed up entirely too late. Since we crammed all our bikes in the room it was a little tight. During the night we were woken up to a massive thunderstorm. The lightning flashed through the blinds and if I didn’t have to ride 80 miles the next day I would have gone outside to watch the storm. I wasn’t awake long and soon fell back asleep. 7:00 came all too soon. I feel like every morning all my motivation disappears but as soon as I force myself up I’m ready to go. It’s weird how fast 20 minutes can change my mood. Mark and Jolee were going to meet us at the coffee house so we headed over there. I’m further exploring coffee so I got another caramel mocha and a chocolate scone. The scone was delicious! I didn’t care for the mocha so much (it was mostly cream and really expensive). I think I preferred McDonald’s version. We are near Alley Springs national park and a ranger stopped by the coffee house. Since we are all wearing our American flag shirts he asked what it was for. We chatted for a bit and he asked to take our picture. He said he would try and put it up on the national park service website! How cool is that?! I chatted with him about how to work in a national park but he gave me the same advice everyone else does: apply to everything on USA jobs. As soon as Mark and Jolee showed up a steady rain began. It looks like I’m going to get drenched again today. I guess it’s better than being hot. Oh and I forgot to mention that I discovered the truth about Rule number 10 yesterday. Even though I didn’t have my panniers the Ozark hills were still difficult. I just went faster. Everytime I think I’ve gotten to the top I can see the hills go on for miles ahead. Sometimes it looks like one massive hill however when I think I’m halfway up it drops me down. The massive hill is a series of ups and downs. Unlike the Appalachians which hit you with one blow, the Ozarks sneakily hit you over and over again. You don’t even realize it until you’re climbing your 99th hill and all you can see is more steep slopes ahead. They beat you down until nothing’s left.

The rain didn’t look like it was going to stop so we headed out. About 7 miles down the road we stopped at Alley Spring National Park. I didn’t know there was a national park near but it made sense as I was on the National Park Ozark highway. I’m really glad we stopped as the spring was beautiful. I posted pictures below. The general store also had a lot of 100 anniversary gifts. I went to Death Valley a couple months ago and they didn’t nearly have as much 100 anniversary merchandise. It was really tempting to buy a sweatshirt and I had to keep reminding myself I would have to carry it for another 3000 miles. Then I remembered that I still needed to go to the post office to mail other things home and I didn’t have to carry my gear right now. Although I would have to carry it for the rest of the day until we met up with the motorhome tonight. They didn’t have a sweatshirt in my size so I bought a 50th anniversary Ozarks t-shirt. Apparently the Ozark national highway turns 50 this year. It made me appreciate being out here even more because the Trans-Am trail turns 40 and the National Park Service turns 100. The ranger also gave me a stack of free ‘find your park’ postcards when I mentioned I was having a hard time finding postcards. The postcards are kinda generic but they’ll work for until I can find some better ones. Everyone that messaged will just get two instead!
We couldn’t linger much longer as it was already 10:30 and we wanted to go 80 miles. The rain had letup so I wanted to get in as many miles as I could before it started again. The next 17 to Summerville were easy and I kept thinking we could have totally done it last night. Oh well. After Summerville it was another 22 to Houston Mo. It didn’t seem that far so I pressed on without taking a break. 10 miles later that was a bad idea as I started to get really hungry. I ate a package of tropical skittles and the rest of my peanut trail mix. I had other snacks but I really wanted real food. It had also started raining and soon I was drenched. The sky was white so there was no point in pulling over as the rain wasn’t going to stop. The next 9 miles were kinda miserable. It wasn’t down pouring but the road was slippery and I was soaked through. (I don’t mind my shift, shorts and gloves being wet but I don’t like it when my socks get that squish squish action going on) I hoped my postcards survived in my backpack. We agreed to meet in Houston Mo and I pulled ahead of the others eager to get out of the rain. Brent followed closely behind. I got into Huston and spotted yet another McDonald’s. I wanted more coffee because I am fully addicted now. I ate a southwest salad and called my mom to wish her happy fourth. The motorhome caught up to Bent and I and I got to put my t-shirt and postcards inside (they survived for the most part) I’m currently sitting outside a dollar general with Mark’s family and Brent waiting to regroup with the others.

Apparently Evan got into a wreck. A dog was chasing him and he clipped newcomer Nelson tire. He’s okay but he scrapped his knuckles. They showed up later than expected and we lingered too long at lunch. All of a sudden it was 4:30 and we had planned another 40 miles. The group is getting rather big and it’s taking longer to make quick decisions. So with only 43 miles under us we called it quits for the day. There was a Walmart down the road and we headed over to get stuff for dinner. We are staying at the city park and decided to grill again.

As we headed over to the city park to set up camp Evan and Ellen went to search for fireworks. Michelle (Marks wife) pulled out the hotdogs and we cut them open, stuffed them with cheese and wrapped them in turkey bacon. We also feasted on chips, strawberries, bananas, Fourth of July themed sugar cookies and a local IPA. I think it was better than eating out. After dinner Evan turned on some music and we listened to some 80s hits, ACDC and Stevie Wonder. Apparently when Evan and Ellen picked up sparklers they discovered a firework show would go on 4 miles from us. We still had some time to kill so I wrote postcards to everyone that sent me their address. I don’t have any addresses on my phone so if you still want one message me your address.
Soon we loaded up in the motorhome and drove 4.5 miles down the road to see the firework show. At first it started off slow but then it turned into a really good show! I was impressed. The show only lasted 45 minutes. I’ve never been that close to fireworks before. 6 people shot them off and were less than 100 feet away and shooting them out of the back of two trucks. The fireworks were so close when they exploded over head. You could really see the depth of them. Afterward we lit some sparklers that were super smoky. Also as the fireworks were going off I remembered that the Hubble telescope was going to pass between Mars and Saturn. Sure enough I looked over a tiny satellite was moving across the sky. I pointed it out Ellen who got excited. The firework smoke soon made it hard to make out any other stars.

We piled back in the motorhome to head back to the city park. No shower tonight but the housing is free so I don’t care. Even though we only went 40 miles today it was a highly enjoyable way to celebrate the Fourth of July!

Happy Fourth of July to everyone!