Friday, June 17th:

Today we woke up at the same old time. I think the boys may be starting to get used to it now…. NOT! Waking up in the morning is like being drawn and quartered for them. Nonetheless, we grabbed some breakfast and hit the road at 5:30. Weather reports had warned about storms coming up from the west- and thunder and lightning strikes weren’t rare as we rode through the early hours of the day. We are planning on getting to Springfield, Missouri- about 100-130 miles depending on how far into Springfield we go. About 18 miles in Jerry got a flat, and we pulled over we were greeted by two very nice doggies (see pictures). We fixed the flat quickly and took our 20 mile break a bit early. Just as we were finishing our break- the storm clouds caught up to us and the rain started coming down. We set back out on the road- and not 30 feet later- Jerry gets another flat. In the process of fixing his first flat, he popped the replacement tire as well. Well, we pulled over and fixed that one- praying that it would work. Gratefully, it did, and we kept riding as we Missouri border grew closer and closer. After grabbing a few pictures at the border, we followed the highway southeast towards Carthage. Just before 11:00, the sun peeked out of the clouds. We couldn’t decide if this was better or worse than rain, because the temperature started to skyrocket. Once inside Carthage, we grabbed some subway sandwiches and stopped at a park next to a lake with a fountain (see pictures). Just around noon, we had already gone 60 miles- only 40 left to go. It had already reached 92 degrees at 1:00, but we only had 29 more miles to go- so we stuck through the heat and kept heading down Highway 96 to Springfield. Along the way, I was supposed to stop at a Walmart for some groceries, and while there, Christian texted to me to get a rubber snake. For those who don’t know, Jerry hates snakes- and we’ve messing around with him by pinching his leg and stuff. (For those who read this- DO NOT TELL JERRY WE GOT THE SNAKE. I’ll put it in the blog after we do the prank) ;-) At 80 miles we took our last break before we got into the hotel in 20 miles. With about 10 miles left, we turned onto Highway 266 and got to our hotel just after 4:00. Overall- good day J