From Big City to Small Town

We left St. Louis this morning about 10:00 am, thinking that we had a nice 275 mile drive southwest toward southwest Missouri.  The weather was clear, bright and warm, so we were looking forward to an easy day. The country had changed rapidly as we left St. Louis from the flatland in Illinois to rolling wooded hills with some fairly steep grades in Missouri. Interstate 44 is in good shape, considering the number of trucks that use it, so we made good time for the first 150 miles or so.

Somewhere around Springfield, MO, we stopped at a roadside rest for lunch.

It was huge!  There was parking for about 100 OTR trucks, and the picnic area was all done up in a Route 66 theme.  Each table had a structure decorated to represent a building that might have been seen on the Mother Road. Interstate 44 roughly follows the route of the original Hwy 66.

As soon as we got back on the road, the skies opened up.  We were in the middle of an honest-to-goodness storm.  Traffic speeds dropped to about 45, and all we could think about was the tornado that hit Joplin some time ago....The trucks didn't slow down very much, though, and whenever they passed, the spray just about killed what little visibility was left.

We finally made it to the rv park we had called earlier in the day, the Red Barn RV Park in Carthage, Missouri.  We had intended to stay in another park that was associated with an rv dealer, but as we thought about it, we decided against getting too close to a bunch of brand new motorhomes just now.  In any case, the Red Barn is a bit off the highway, so it's quiet.  The rain has been coming down in buckets all afternoon, so we haven't gone out other than a quick dog walk.  

Donna's family has history in this area, so we'll stay a couple of days and do some exploring. Her father and his family lived in several small towns in southeastern Kansas in the early 1900's, and she understandably wants to go see what the area looks like.  Carthage, Missouri, where we are staying, is a small town, about 14,100 people, and somewhat depressed, as the median income is about $32,000 and an average house costs $87,000. It's about 30 miles from the towns in Kansas that we want to see, and those towns only have about 4,000 population.  Should be quite a contrast.