Silva, Missouri

 

My day didn’t get off to the best of starts when the librarian in the small town of Mansfield told me non-library card holders had to pay one dollar to use its Wi-Fi, and my Chicago library card didn’t count. That was a first.  I told the young woman I’d been to hundreds of libraries all over the country and had never been asked to pay to use the Wi-Fi.  Many actually promote themselves as Wi-Fi zones that anyone can use at any time of the day. I asked how this library came to have such a policy.  

She said she’d only been at the library a year and that was how it was when she started. I asked if the Subway a mile away along the highway had Wi-Fi.  She didn’t know, nor did she suggest anywhere else, though there was a Dollar Store nearby and they generally have Wi-Fi, though not the strongest. 

I wasn’t quite ready to give it a try, opting to spend a few minutes in the warmth of the library on this chilly morning to do a final typo-check of the blog post I had begun in the tent the night before and take advantage of the library’s electricity, if I could get away with that.  I didn’t have a chance to put that to a test, as when the woman told me I couldn’t bring in my water bottle, another first, I walked out, resisting an expletive.

The Dollar Store offered Wi-Fi, but it was so weak that it couldn’t download podcasts and struggled to download photos to the blog.  As I plugged away, a woman who drove up to the store told me a nearby store where I could sit inside had Wi-Fi, and she gave me the code—123456789–so I wouldn’t have to bother anyone for it. That left me feeling a little better about the day, especially when its Wi-Fi was adequate for my needs. 

The day took a turn for the worse later in the afternoon when I had a quick succession of three flat tires thanks to all the debris on the shoulder of the busy four-lane highway I was forced to ride, as there was no viable alternative in the rugged terrain. Two of the flats were due to tiny wires from the remnants of truck tires that had flatted and fragmented off the tire rims.  The roadway was a minefield of tire strands, just as I experienced in Senegal and Mali.  When I came upon them I tried to pass to their left thinking the rush of air from the traffic would blow the imperceptible wires into the ditch.  Not all the time.

The wires just cause a pinprick of a puncture, so they don’t result in immediate flats. One of my flats was due to the tire becoming imperceptibly soft, enough so that when I hit a stone it caused a double-pronged pinch flat that was too much of a gouge to patch.  I was down to just two spare tubes, so after the second flat I had to get to a service station with water so I could find the holes to patch the tubes.  One of the wires had caused a pair of punctures that a patch could just barely cover.  I resumed riding with just one spare.  A mile later I had another flat, so had to continue on nervously without a spare.  Luckily there was a Walmart ten miles up the road, my only hope for tubes.  It was a tense ten miles, as I fought off the dread of having to hitch a ride if I had another flat.

The Mountain Grove Walmart wasn’t a megastore, but it did have tubes and of the not so common Presta Valve type that I needed.   Walmart to the rescue! What a relief! I bought all three that were on the shelf. Good thing I didn’t need the more common Schrader valve tubes, as they were sold out.  And I was able to stock up on patches, as I was down to just two. That saved my day. 

I could have a peaceable sleep that night, other than being concerned that a barking dog might be given its release and come to my tent.  I had camped behind a broken down barn not realizing there was a homestead a little ways away through the forest.  I couldn’t be sure I was the object of the dog’s ire, but he hadn’t started barking until I’d finished setting up my tent in the dusk.  

It was a day without a Carnegie, as was the next, as I had a two hundred-forty mile stretch between the Carnegie in Marshfield and the next in Cape Girardeau on the Mississippi River. Other than the long stretch on the four-lane highway with all the debris, it was fine cycling on windy, up-and-down roads through thickly forested terrain on the northern fringe of the Ozarks. 

The terrain and the sparse population and the lack of Carnegies and the presence of logging lent a resemblance to the Massif Central of France.  One marked difference, besides the excessively large pickups here, was how towns introduced themselves.  In France towns have signs indicating they are a Ville Fleuri with from one to four flowers representing their rank or a sign advertising that they had earned the designation of Les Plus Beaux Villages de France.

Towns and even counties in Missouri announce themselves as a Purple Heart community, which any town can qualify for by simply applying to the military to be known as such.  They don’t even have to have any wounded military.  

Evoking flowers versus the wounded of war sums up the contrasting mentality of these countries. With a military budget larger than the next nine highest countries combined, some of which goes to pay for these signs, the US can almost be said to be dominated by its armed forces. The French don’t forsake their veterans, as nearly every town has a monument of a solider honoring those who sacrificed themselves themselves in the World Wars fought on French soil.

A further contrast between the countries is the slogan that forms their identity.   “Liberté, Equalité, Fraternité” is emblazoned on nearly every town hall in France.  The US doesn’t have anything so prominent, but the “Pursuit of Happiness” is a term somewhat synonymous with the US.  I came upon it at a Boy Scout camp outside the town of Silva that I made a four mile detour to for a Statue of Liberty.  Just behind the statue in the most picturesque setting of any I have come upon was a plaque with that phrase from the Declaration of Independence.

The sprawling grounds of Camp Lewellan had clusters of tents all over of scouts enjoying an idyllic weekend.  I was glad the Statue of Liberty had drawn me to it despite the steep hills to reach it.  It was a wonderful hideaway.