Springfield Missouri
I slept under a bridge the other night avoiding the torrential downpour while the sky roared with bellows of thunder. The dogs next to Highway 5 yelped and howled and somehow with all the noise the sound of raindrops pulled me under into a peaceful rest.
I headed for the pavilion by the lake to catch up on some reading. After a few chapters the drizzle began to faintly disappear before my eyes and ever so often a drop would fall and splash against the ground. The overcast sky lurked above me the rest of the day while i journeyed down Highway 5 to Highway 60 on my quest to fix my phone.
I made a few stops, at the Dollar General and a church, to pick up food and take a break. I noticed Amish Country all around me. Signs for share the road for both bicycles and horse-drawn carriages. I back pedaled behind one for a few miles waiting to pass and thought about their lifestyle. In my early years as a child I thought their odd lifestyle came from lack of intelligence. Who in their right mind would give up all the technology we have discovered as a nation to live hundreds of years in the past? I now understand why. A minimalistic lifestyle brings less stress and the technology is not a necessity, but a want that society became dependent upon. I completely related to it.
After about 60 miles, I ended up going to the Sprint store and my phone stopped glitching. Of course it would do that. I met a woman there named Susan who asked what sports I played due to my athletic build. I told her skiing, rock climbing, cycling, skydiving. We talked about school, work and my cross-country trip. She is a Geotechnical Engineer as well. I was going to ask for a reference, but got distracted and never got her number. My phone appears to be working at the moment. I picked up a mophie which is pretty much the same thing as my external battery pack but it connects directly to the phone. I ended up well off the trail by twenty miles or so and the clouds dispersed while the sunset beneath my eyes making the most beautiful view yet. I nabbed a few pictures for everyone to see.
I continued on down the road for five more miles scoping out spots to sleep. I found the perfect spot next to a high-end hotel, “The Marriot.” I am sleeping beneath their sign in a field of knee-high grass right behind an abandoned building. I am low enough that no one can see me from the road or hotel and I nestled on the concrete pad. Hopefully the rain is past us so I can get a nice, peaceful sleep.
The temperature dropped a bit tonight in the low 50’s. I ran into two problems, condensation and freezing. In the process of determining solutions.
