day 47

we awoke and everyone was actually still there! we each packed up our gear and chatted for a bit until we headed off to the grocery store and they headed off to the wonderful west. at the grocery store, we bought some fruits, yogurts, and then some cereal. we ate the most horrible knock-off/knock-off cocoa puffs, they said they were from argentintia or something, we'd rather just eat the cardboard that they came in. we honestly, as hungry as we were, couldn't even finish the bowl we poured. we took off towards hartville to fight some more hills. it was a beautiful scenery change from kansas with more lush green and wild flowers, but there was lots of steep inclines but luckily our knees and legs were adjusting to the new riding conditions. i guess some of the mennonite population has migrated over to missouri too since there were several signs showing horse and buggys on the roads, sadly we didn't see one. we got to marshfield which was a huge town of 20,000 or more probably and it was super hot out so we stopped at dairy queen and got a blizzard, so refreshing. we decided to keep going to hartville. we got into town and had one brutal climb that was right before entering town, luckily we could coast down the other side. their only grocery store now, the other one got burned down a couple months ago, was at the top of the hill so we checked it out but sped down to the downtown where we stopped and ate at a family restaurant. we got a huge burger each and 2 egg biscuits (evan got them on toast). ha. we were stuffed. paid and headed out to our bikes; i put my helmet on and went to get on my bike and my shorts got caught on my saddle and i just tipped over and i hit my head on the ground and something in my ankle popped. a stupid mistake and after a minute or two on the ground, i got up and luckily my ankle didn't break or fracture or anything. i got lucky. i walked my bike up to the city park which was literally 30 feet away and was filled with tons of other cyclists. there were a couple groups there of older and younger people. we walked right in and the younger people came up and just chatted our ears off, it was wonderful that they were so friendly. we talked with them all night telling stories and telling of cool stuff up ahead. the city park was out front of the courthouse/library/police station and you could use the bathrooms inside. we hungout then went to bed.