Day 58 – Marshfield, Missouri to Houston, Missouri

Friday Night Football

While talking with a few people in Marshfield and then listening to a group of older men around a table Friday morning at the Uptown Cafe, it wasn’t hard to notice that many of the people around here have a tremendously thick country accent.  It’s strong to the point where sometimes you’re not quite sure what they’re saying.  They’ll talk about things such as “I slept with the wind’ers open last night.”

The ride for the day ended up being 67 miles.  The roads started to become a little more winding with the frequent hills. As with the day before, I was happy with  how I was handling them.

At one point Charlie pulled along a fence by the side of a farmhouse where tomatoes were growing on vines.  He found this interesting and went up to them to have a  look. Then he started picking them.  I was across the road and saw the farmer  coming around the corner from his house. He had spotted Charlie’s thievery so I called over to warn him but he didn’t hear me. Once the farmer arrived and it was obvious that there was no hostility and they were only going to be talking about tomatoes for the next ten minutes I hit the road and moved on.

A while later I caught up with Marcus and Kirsty on their tandem. They were stopped in the road examining and saving the smallest turtle spotted yet, which easily fit in the palm of your hand.  I then followed them the remaining few miles into the town of Hartville and the Yakety Yak Cafe.  This place was a nice surprise. Terry, the owner, had the biggest country accent of anyone I’d spoken with   “I wish yeh good luck.  You won’t ever find me ridin’ a bike across this town, forgit about the country.  I’m just bein’ honest with yeh.” He was a very good natured guy.

Terry also has an amazing comic book collection (over 10,000 of them) and had some framed and placed all over the cafe, which made the restaurant a lot more interesting.

As the day went on it became more and more cloudy, to the point where you were wondering if the rain was going to arrive, but it never did by the time I got to Houston.  This was yet another town along a busy road which made it a little less appealing.

While the town itself wasn’t spectacular, it was fun going to another Friday night football game, this time at Houston High School. It seemed like the entire city  turned out for the game. For these small towns high school football is the big thing. Truly amazing to see thousands of people come out to watch a bunch of 16 year old kids play football.  But it’s really an event and something to see.  You are among thousands of Missourians of the country variety having a good time on a Friday night and taking in a game.