May Showers

Thursday May 30, 2013

We left the home of the 3 musketeers on Thursday morning and headed north from Houston on US 63 then east at Licking, on route 32 to Salem, Mo. to pick up a passport stamp at the Mark Twain National Forest service office there. With our books properly stamped we took off for the Mark Twain National Forest service office in Rolla, Mo for another stamp. When that was properly affixed we started to think about breakfast.

We started out business I-44 toward a known Shoney’s location when we spied a Waffle House and decided to turn in so Wilma would not have to eat there by herself. Waffle House is kind of a favorite with her for breakfast, or lunch, or possibly dinner.

After a proper waffle fix we again headed north on US 63 thinking about Iowa for a destination. There had been severe thunderstorms spawning tornados in a line from Texas to Wisconsin over the past few days and the National Weather Service was forecasting another day of the same. As a consequence, we were traveling north, with a very dark band of clouds to the west that was getting closer the farther north we traveled. The wind was blowing from the south and pushing us along quite nicely, with probably 40 mph gusts. We stopped for fuel at Moberly, Mo and were again headed north on route 63 when the storm hit us. The wind had shifted and we were in heavy rain. About 10 miles north of Moberly we decided to turn back and ended up parked in the Moberly, Mo. Wal-Mart parking lot at about 3:30 in the afternoon. We popped next door to a local, friendly Pizza Hut for dinner after the rain slowed then went back to Wal-Mart for the night. We were glad to be off the road.