Missouri - Granola Bar Hell

We crossed the bridge into Missouri and started out over the flood plains to the south of the Mississippi river, but the head winds were making the going slow and after 12 miles the climbing started up into Saint Genevieve County. Lovely rolling hills and mature woodland interspersed with expensive farm houses and barns, were the order of the day.

It was another hot one and the gas station pop stop at Ozora MO was well deserved, the owner chatted for a while about the other cyclists who had been through and we signed the cyclist guest book. It was hard to get back on the bikes after sipping cold drinks in a cool air conditioned room, but we’re getting hardened to it!

Some miles further on we needed to stop for lunch and pulled up in a clearing beside the road. It was one of our picnic lunches of Bagels, Peanut Butter and what ever else that was lurking in our panniers.  This was to prove to be an expensive lunch stop, as I bit into a Granola bar I heard and felt a nasty crack, thinking it was a Hazel nut cracking I carried on scoffing. Feeling a sharp edge against my tongue I realised my tooth had cracked in half and I had swallowed it! Although there was no pain I knew I had to get to a dentist quickly.

We carried on through the hills passing many vineyards and eventually got enticed in to a Micro Brewery where I enjoyed a local cider over ice and a draft root beer.

This carried me through to our destination of Farmington and to the amazing Al’s Place cyclists hostel, we didn’t even need our maps, from the city limits the road was stencilled with signs guiding cyclists in to the hostel door. On arrival we rang the Police dispatchers number and they gave us the door code; the place was ours for the night, tv, internet, laundry and hot showers, luxury!

Later that evening Greg the City manager dropped by and chatted with us about the hostel and Farmington; he also came up trumps with recommendations for a dentist just down the road.

The next day we had a rest day whilst I had my teeth seen to, luckily I got an appointment in the morning. Typically what I thought might be a simple filling ended up being a bit more complex, when the x-rays showed decay in the tooth behind the cracked one as well! The dentist Tim O’Bryan and his lovely assistant Sarah got to work and I was in the chair for over an hour having two fillings, one of which required some form of supportive peg. It took three or four injections to numb the pain of the deep drilling and I had a drooping face for the most of the day. I’m now $417 out of pocket, but very impressed with Tim and his teams great service and quality of dentistry, thanks for helping me out…

I decided to treat myself to a haircut this afternoon and went in the local barbers. It turned out to be owned by a lady from Edinburgh who's sister lives in Newton Abbott (a town near my home town in the UK). Her American accent turned straight into a broad Edinburgh accent which Tony struggled to understand, so did I come to think of it! For you Devon Blog readers, she had visited Trago Mills and was a big fan! It's a small world......

We are now spending a relaxed evening at Al’s Place, with a Dutch father and son Trans Am team and a few other American cyclists, two of which are our first East bounders we have bumped into. We can now get updates about the roads ahead…. the word tornadoes has been mentioned a few times….. I’ll choose to ignore that for now! 




More photos on Flickr  click slide show on the top right of the Flickr page.