Day 16 - Van Buren to Mountain View

Day 16 of our tour
October 19, 2016
41.3 miles today
3899 feet of climbing
(704.1 miles, cumulative)
(23,682 feet of climbing, cumulative)


It was a very hot and humid day, and we stopped often to cool off, which included soaking ourselves. The next accommodations would have been another 16 miles, and we decided to stop here in Mountain View.

We were on US 60 the entire day, on a nice wide shoulder. But the road was never flat, and we did a large amount of climbing. We were either climbing on a long ascent, or descending to the start of the next long ascent. These are the Ozark Mountains, and sizeable hills abound. Since I wasn't riding with the back-home Saturday morning group there was no need to press hard to get up these hills. Patience, that was our approach. We see a hill and it does not mean "more hard work" but just "a time of slower forward progress."

We had our fourth flat on the rear which was quickly fixed. It was again a snake bite pinch flat. We've had no puncture flats yet which seems a bit odd as we have had to dodge all sorts of debris on the shoulder, especially parts of tires.

We got in to the Honeysuckle Inn at 3:00 and have spent a lot of time route planning for the next two days. We reach Springfield, Missouri on Friday evening, and motels are heavily booked, so we need to plan ahead, which we've now done. Tomorrow will be a short day again, but Friday will be about 63 miles.

I did go out again to get a salad kit and some burritos for supper and we ate in the room. Fortunately the weather seems to be turning here, and instead of today's high of 85 F, tomorrow's is forecast as 61 F.

Here is a photo of the road, and like yesterday there were times when we had it all to ourselves. Jean had just blotted herself with a soaking handkerchief and was trying to catch a bit of breeze to cool down:

Fall colors were even more in evidence today. It was the red leaves that especially stood out to us:

Once again we had grandkids on our mind. Look, Madeleine, a pink truck:

And, Ross, there was a yellow truck but it was the fastest truck we saw today, and it was so fast that I could not take its picture. But I did get a picture of this green truck for you. (It's sort of like John Deere green, but not exactly the same.)

More US 60 tomorrow, with more hills, but lower temperatures (we think).