July 24, 2014 - Marshfield, MO - Population 5,720

Post date: Jul 24, 2014 11:00:02 PM

I’m taking a driving break in Marshfield, MO. Edwin Hubble, the astronomer, is from Marshfield. I would tell you more about how he is associated with the Hubble telescope, but when I tried to find out more about that on the internet, with my free Wi Fi connection at McDonalds, my laptop tells me I’ve been infected with many Trojans, so I immediately shut everything down and will have Doug look at it later! So I’m back to a word document that I will patch in later. We camped on the courthouse lawn in Hartville last night. Only thing lacking was a place to take a shower. We had a minor mishap this morning when we discovered our syrup bottle leaked all over our dry food bag. So we spent some time this morning cleaning up syrup.

While camping in the courthouse square, we could hear every car/motorcycle that came by. I swear at one point I thought a motorcycle was going to come through the tent!

The roads are really white here. And I see black caterpillars crossing the road constantly while I am driving. I don’t know how many I have run over so far. I have passed 3 turtles so far crossing the road. I really don’t want to run over a turtle, but I’m afraid the ones I’ve passed have probably not fared too well. I have also seen a few squished armadillos. The other day when I took the picture of Doug next to the Success/Houston sign, I stepped into the grass at the side of the road and a whole bunch of jumping insects sprang out of the grass, so I stayed on the pavement after that.

We finished today in Ash Grove, pop. 1472. We found ice cream real close at the Copper Grill. The lady working there with her daughter told us that a lot of the bikers stop in and they have let the bikers stay at their house or camp in their yard and have helped with their laundry. It's really nice of them. We will drive 30 minutes today to stay at a motel in Springfield, so we don't have to be on the ground again tonight.