We set an alarm this morning in order to get an early start, and were on the road by 7:00. We took Highway 14 to Altamont where we bought honey, peanut butter, donuts and a pastry. 

Interestingly, there ISN’T currently a Highway 14 going to Altamont, so I guess they changed the name? Or it's the Twilight Zone Effect like the town of Holly that completely disappeared?

From there, we took turns drafting to Chetopa, alternating every fifteen minutes. William took off for Baxter Springs (pop 4,773) while I, always on the lookout for some good stories, stopped to talk to a bunch of old men. 

In Baxter Springs I unsuccessfully looked for William and finally stopped to eat lunch. I sat there for a long time waiting for him to show up, but finally gave up and left at 1:45. Almost immediately after I started riding, some construction workers started yelling at me to stop. They told me that William had asked them to stop me to let me know that he'd be waiting at the Catholic church on the main street. We chatted for about five minutes before I took off.

Once William and I reconnected, we rode to Highway 71 and followed it towards Saginaw (pop 293), a suburb southeast of Joplin. There wasn't a decent place to stop so we just pulled over in someone's yard. Granted, it was quite a LARGE yard, so we didn't think they'd mind. I continued working on my loaf of bread by eating another peanut butter and jelly sandwich as William cooked potatoes. 

Continuing on, we found a store a quarter of a mile down the road and, just as we were pulling up to it, William had another flat. He fixed it while I went in to buy tomorrow's breakfast. We continued on through Saginaw, and eventually found a fantastic stealth campsite about six miles down a rolling road. The scenery looked like it could've been from a movie, and the weather was absolutely perfect. 

My journal from the next morning reads:

"Woke up at 6:30/laid in bed/ate trail mix and water/burned tick from instep"

Reading that forty years later, I'm thinking "WTF?" I just casually mention it, like "saw robin land on a branch," or "talked to store owner."  

And also, I burned it? With what??  I might've had a lighter to start a campfire but I sure as hell didn't hold a flame up to my instep. Did I heat up something with the lighter (a twig?, a piece of metal?), then touch it to the tick? It just seems like that was an event that warrants a liiiitttle more than "burned tick from instep," but perhaps by that point it just wasn't a big deal. I'm hoping that I don't come across a reference in a week or two that says "bit by snake/sucked out poison/ate at Wendy's."

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