I rose, packed, and .. well, you know the drill, right? I rode through Centerville and then Ellington, a dark, seedy little town that offered one gas station and about ten mechanics. The Ozarks, being west of the Mississippi, possess an evergreen-dominated offering of trees, which tends to make the forests very monotonous. I did, however, snap this photo, which should only make sense to one of you. The rest of you can go to hell.
I finally rolled into Eminence, a river town that offers canoeing and tubing along the Jack's Fork River. I've included a picture of the river for those of you that won't be visiting this little corner of Missouri. The water, as you can see, is very clear, as the river is fed by numerous natural springs.
The people of Missouri have been genuine pricks thusfar in my travels, honking for no reason and "buzzing" by me rather closely just to let me know that they don't like me on the road. Always nice to be noticed. Shirtless drunks also yell at me from their porches (at least when they don't have a mouthful of pork rinds, they do).
I decided to forgo the campgounds full of drunken tubers in order to stay a motel full of drunken tubers, but then successfully haggled for a larger riverside cabin at a motel room price. For dinner I went to the Steakhouse Saloon, which -- true to its name -- only served steaks. The joint was definitely a cowboy favorite, with no cars and about 20 pickups in the parking lot. I ate at a riverside window, watching an astonishingly drunk cowboy (astonishing only because the strongest thing they served was Michelob) annoy other diners, then I headed back to my cabin for a Dirty Harry movie and a night's sleep.