Day 43 - Houston to Salem MO

Had a cloudy and chilly start upon leaving Houston MO.

Houston has a still functioning drive-in theater!

I haven't seen very many houses with solar in Missouri but this one and one other nearby had quite a few panels.

While there are many signs warning of fines & jail time for littering, there is plenty of trash on the roadsides -- even under the no littering signs. Sad. We need to stop trash at the source and hold manufacturers accountable for all the trash they create in the first place.

Lots of agricultural fields to the left and right of my route.

Rode by a country radio station.

Thankfully the roads I rode were pretty empty most of the time.

Now here is a big city -- Raymondville with a population of 363.

Raymondville had a house with three satellite antennas.

I passed 5 or 6 of lumber mills in this part of Missouri.

These yellow flowers appeared on a regular basis on this day and the day before. Sometimes near houses, sometimes not.

Lots of different flowers in this cemetery.

Got routed down another dirt road. At least it was short and pretty smooth.

Olig's BBQ was a pleasant surprise for a lunch stop...

...and it had an excellent salad bar!

After lunch, rode down more dirt roads...

...before getting back to pavement. The dirt roads were relatively smooth today with almost zero traffic. When I got back to paved roads they had the very narrow shoulder with a rumble strip in it. So I had to take the lane on this country highway, Many bicyclists are uncomfortable doing this but it is really the safest way to ride these roads so the motorist sees you. 99.99% of the motorists even in Missouri slow down and pass you by a very wide margin. I did however run into one logging truck and 2 red pickups that honked rudely and did not pass correctly. These 3 vehicles on this one day and a Range Rover in California that yelled at me have been the only seriously misbehaving motorists out of many thousands I've encountered in 6 weeks and 2800 miles of cycling so far.

This part of Missouri has quite a few Taxidermists. Lots of hunting here. Also have heard lots more gunfire than any time else on my ride. Heard hundreds of gun shots today.

Road got smoother and the weather warmed up to mid 60s but shoulder still not ridable due to rumble strip.

Encountered a couple of butchers not far apart. They both looked prosperous.

My Warmshowers.org host family for the evening is making great strides in going Zero Waste including raising their own chickens!! It is harder to go Zero Waste in rural communities that do not have the same recycling and reuse support like we have in Silicon Valley.

Here is a short chirpy chick video. Chicks are so cute!