Carthage to Strafford, MO 05-08-2026 Day 28

Hard to believe we have been on the road now for 4 weeks! The forecast was looking good. The donuts that Ken Gill Left us should be made illegal, they were so good. I wandered over to a nearby gas station for 2 hard boiled eggs and a large coffee to make a more balanced diet. We had each got a banana from Braum’s in a late night run. We were ready to ride.

In this part of Missouri, Route 66 mapped to County Road 96. We were heading due east into the sunny sky with a light crosswind from the south. In the first town, Avilla, there was a flag on a mural and 3 blocks of a town. I found the mural for the General Store colorful.

Near the town of Plew (I didn’t make that up), there was a small makeshift market set up just off the road. Something large with balloons came running toward me and got my attention. He/it was yelling free coffee, donuts. I was still feeling the effects of the donuts Ken Gill had brought, but the coffee did get my attention. Especially when it looked like this.

I politely declined the offer and kept going down the road. By the time we were 20 miles in, we were passing through Phelps. It had a couple of Historic buildings still standing, this schoolhouse was one.

The next town down the road was Heatonville. It never really saw a town, but I did see this windmill.

By this point the road had changed its configuration. Until now, we had had a reasonable shoulder to the road. Now, for several miles, there was a continuous rumble strip along the white line. If there was traffic coming from both directions, we only had a 6 inch or 2 foot, a smooth surface between the rumble script and grass. We got bounced around a lot.

Near Halltown, we were able to get on a county road that paralleled our current Route 66. It was a relief to be off the rumble strips, and even though we had to go up-and-down hills a lot more. Without getting on that road, we wouldn’t have found this small Amish market where we had free coffee. I indulged in another cinnamon roll, in spite of the donuts I had earlier.

We stayed on County Road 266 going through tree lined fields. We came upon an interesting bridge.

Further down the road was a preserved gas station almost in the middle of nowhere.

We left the gas station and went rolling up and downhills for a few miles. We heard a loud honking horn and there was a big pickup truck parked on the side of the road. The guy sitting in the bed stopped Ron. Ron didn’t recognize this man. But the man asked Ron, if he had seen Vic. I could hear voices coming over a megaphone, and there in front of me was an old neighbor Mike Theurich. He had been giving us tips about things to see and complementing us on our journey. It was fantastic that he came out to meet us on the road and the fact that he even found us

there were a lot of rolling hills up-and-down. After a while, it was tough to do one after the other. I asked for Ron’s opinion.

For a long time, we had seen cows in pastures on either side of us. As we would pass the cows, 1 then 2, then eventually the whole herd would stare at us. Sometimes they would run away this time they came to see me.

After a lot more peddling, we finally made our way into Springfield. There were lots of historic sites along old Route 66 that we made through town.

As we were exiting the northern part of Springfield. We ended up on a small bike trail. It went all around a college campus. Some of the tunnels I went underneath the walkway. I almost tipped over on one of The Rocks that was below the water surface that I didn’t see.

As we left Springfield we were thirsty and tired and only 9 miles from our hotel. We stopped to get a beer just to make sure that we could make it all the way to the hotel. After going through our usual nightly routine, we walked over to a pizza place. The menu said they had beer. The sign outside said the name of the previous owners. The server told us that they had not been open long enough to get their liquor license. So there was no beer for our Pizza. We both chose meatball cal zones. Then, we were told they were out of meatballs. We accepted some sausage as a substitute for the meatballs. When are food finally arrived? We both had pepperoni calzones, not sausage. The bread portion was great, so we didn’t really care. Because there was also a lot of cheese in them. We were pretty hungry.

even I couldn’t need it all. Although I did have a side salad too. Looks like this will be part of tomorrow’s breakfast. Overall, it was a great day. We had a nice conversation with the Thomas gentleman at the little marketplace, where I got my cinnamon roll. I got to meet an old neighbor I hadn’t seen in decades. The worst thing that happened was a bunch of technical issues in making this blog, which I will not bore you with. But we’ll keep me awake. The rest of the night.

The ride stats are here. The 3D video is here.

The Not So Lone Rider.