Miss ou ri' in Missouri

MIMAL 3: Missouri

I woke early in the morning and crossed the border into Missouri.

I made good speed during the morning and reached the Mark Twain Lake for lunch. After a substantial feed I read for a few hours afterwards; I don't know what gave me the urge, I hadn't felt like reading for a while. I started a new book: The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.

Then I passed through Bowling Green, where there seemed to be a lot of people playing some kind of sport, and Troy, where there seemed to be some kind of classical Greek war going on.

I lunched in St. Louis, and met a woman who was very elegantly dressed. She seemed to be having trouble crossing a puddle, so I threw my greenygrey coat down over it, and she could then get across. She said 'Merci beaucoup' in that cute French accent, and I said 'Miss ou ri'', as I saw she was not wearing a ring.

Then I swam down the Missouri River to the Lake of the Ozarks, crossed the Ozark Plateau and rested on the edge of Joplin for the night. I thought I heard a woman with a great voice singing about a bloke called Bobby McGee during the night.