This morning I was dying for a shower and happily enjoyed one since there was no one around. After that, I had cereal for breakfast then drove out of camp. After such a long bout of driving yesterday, I wasn’t too keen to get on the road again but resolved to make an early camp and relax in the afternoon.

As I drove through the town of Yates Center I was faced with an army convoy travelling in the opposite direction but apart from that, the drive to the Missouri border was pretty well uneventful. More cornfields and farmland for days. I haven’t seen a single mountain since leaving Colorado, just endless horizon.

My first planned stop was at Fort Scott, a national historic site right on the border of Kansas and Missouri. Despite it being not all that exciting, I was happy for the break. I think the fort had been completely destroyed and the buildings rebuilt to honour the place that played a part in America’s civil war.

After a wander around the fort, I considered trying to find a river to tube in Missouri to guide me in a good direction across the state but I decided I’d probably already done the best tubing there is to do in Durango so stuck to my original path of going through the Ozarks and then on to St. Louis. Back on the road then and straight into Missouri. An hour later, I was in the region of the Ozarks and trying to decide where I could stop to enjoy the lakeside and dunk my body into it. There were so many state parks around but in the end, I turned off at Ha Ha Tonka park, taking my chances.

Unlike other states, Missouri’s state parks are free to anyone which was a happy surprise. At the visitor’s center, I spoke to a lovely lady who told me about the park’s top spots and I dutifully took my highlighted map and drove out to the first attraction, some castle ruins. Not exactly what I’d expected, but I wasn’t quite hungry for lunch yet so I drove on up the hill then walked a half mile to the ruins. The massive stone castle was pretty well intact but the interior had diminished thanks to a fire in the 70s. It would have been a grand home with a perfect view down to the lakes.

Fences stopped me and other people walking around the ruins – this isn’t England after all when you can roam freely around the ancient walls, so I soon head back to the car after doing a full circle of the castle. I called Dan on my walk back and we discovered that already we had a communication issue between our phones. I’d been receiving his messages but he hadn’t been getting any of mine. We both assumed the other was out of range when they didn’t reply. By the time I’d driven down to the lake, we had it sorted.

My tummy was in a twist so instead of lunch, I went for a wander down another half mile trail to the springs that feed the Ozarks. The lake is dammed but its main source is from these springs so I figured they’d be worth a look. First things first though, I needed to cool down. I donned my bikini and dunked myself in the water. Unfortunately, it wasn’t like the snow melt waters of Colorado, but swimming towards the bottom I found some cool relief.

I walked past the families and couples picnicking to the trail and meandered along the paved trail. The lake turned into a bit of a swamp before the clear blue waters of the spring presented themselves. The water looked so pure and untouched, probably because they prohibited people from swimming in it or even touching it. I stood and watched the crystal water bubble up from seemingly nowhere before I took the “scenic but strenuous” section of the hike that looped back around to the start through the forest. I took the route because I thought I was going to get a sweet view of the springs from on high, but I just got forest. Not too disappointed, it was a nice walk back to the car.

By the time I got back, I was thoroughly ready for lunch and made myself a salad which I ate at a picnic table in the shade. The Ha Ha Tonka was definitely serving as a great break from driving. Lunch done, I had one more dip in the water before getting back in the driver’s seat and carrying on. I found myself a campsite not too far down the road and hoped to be there in the next hour.

More driving through fields of corn and I turned down a dirt road towards the Missouri River. I was falling asleep at this point, my body so ready to have a relax at camp. To my dismay, I found that camping wasn’t allowed at the boat ramp and if that wasn’t enough to deter me, the pile of dead fish in the carpark and the rubbish strewn everywhere was enough to convince me. I used the bathroom facilities (the forest) before looking up another campsite. Forty-five minutes away. To face the drive, I cracked a coke from the fridge and was delighted to find it was half frozen. Just what I needed on such a hot day.

I carried on along the highway and five minutes later, I did a double take when I saw a beautiful parking spot right next to an old railway bridge. That was my camp, I knew it. I took my first opportunity to turn around and got back to it. The road down to the flat area by the bridge looked steep, but after short consideration, I decided it wouldn’t be a problem and made my way down it. I parked it right by the water and was satisfied. It was barely 5pm so I had plenty of time to chill out.

As I pulled up, a guy on his Harley also stopped on the dirt road to have a look at the bridge. I did my best to ignore him, not sure if he’d be friendly, but turns out he was. He was wandering along the bridge as I was checking it out and so we got to talking. He was a local and hardly ever left the state of Missouri, just taking his bike out on weekend trips to explore close to home. He especially liked these old railway bridges and he told me that we were standing on a bike trail that went all the way from St. Louis to Kansas City. When he said this, the words “flat” and “boring” came to mind. He was on his way soon enough and I was left to enjoy my camp.

I spent some time catching up on my finance spreadsheet and going through hundreds of receipts, like the big nerd that I am. When I was halfway done with that, Jon called me and we got to have a good long catch up and I got to wish him a happy birthday in voice format. I started cooking dinner as we talked and by the time we were done, so was my burger and chips. This is probably one of my best van meals, I can’t believe I haven’t made chips before they were so good! The burger was ace as well.

I ate my dinner under the shelter of my fly net which I hung from my back door. I cannot describe how crazy the bugs were. I wasn’t only contending with flies, there were little green things, little yellow things and bigger noisy things, all of them wanting to eat me. The fly net did its job well, keeping me isolated from it all. Next, I got to catch up with Sheldan and Vanessa who’d just met up in Malaysia for some new adventures. I caught them up on my latest and they told me all about their plans to rage in the big city. I was happy to hear they were both coming to the farm to spend Christmas with me and my parents.

While all this was going on, three (very fat) people had parked their car at the top of the hill and walked down with fishing gear. They got their poles set up and sat a bit away from me but I could hear their conversations and they could definitely hear mine. When I’d first got to camp, I’d restarted a fire that was still smouldering a few meters away from me but had soon given up when I found it did nothing to deter the bugs. They got it going again and I’m sure they found the same result.

After talking to all my people, I retreated inside the van to see if the bug situation was any better. I set my fly net up over the bed so I could have the windows open because it was the most still and humid night I had experienced thus far. The bugs absolutely swarmed over the net as I blogged then watched a bit of TV before going to sleep. The whole while, the three fatties outside sat, waiting for their poles to move. I was just drifting off when they packed it up and left. They had been there about 6 hours and hadn’t caught a single thing. What a useless sport.