We were eager to get away early this morning with the prospect of a predominantly downhill morning ahead of us. Last night we watched the sunset over the Rockies and today we saw them fully illuminated by the morning Sun and said our goodbyes. It feels like the end of the first stage of our journey.
We set out, cheekily tearing it through the roadworks rather than wait half an hour for an escort. A few hair raising moments with the local dogs and we were out of the town and making way quickly down Route 2. For most of the morning we were travelling around the 20mph mark and made it to lunch at Shelby already with 60 miles on the clock! En route we stopped for a cheeky drive-thru McDonalds to keep us going.
The roads today have been the straightest we have encountered, as we expected, and it has been more a challenge to combat the boredom and keep ourselves entertained. Playing games such as getting the passing lorries to sound their horns at us kept us amused, and we even got a couple of freight trains (often a mile long) and an Amtrak (their passenger trains) to give us a couple of blasts!
We also saw some osprey, antelope and bison along the road.
After lunch it became less downhill, more flat with some steep undulating stretches to keep us occupied, but still straight as an arrow. Tomorrows road goes more or less straight for 40 miles, and often you can see traffic at the far end that takes a long while to actually pass.
Still feeling strong at Chester, we pushed on a little further to Joplin and the next campsite on route. We are pitched in the Joplin town park, which is free, sheltered and has all the amenities we could need! And there is a bar two blocks down, so I will end this one here...
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