Oct 16, 2009 -- Johnson, NE to Bentonville, AR

We awoke this morning to the smell of the wood-burning stove warming up the rooms downstairs.  It was fun to be in "the country."  Ruth made a breakfast of pancakes for everybody and we stuffed ourselves.  Once we could move again, we loaded our stuff back into the car.

After time for a few more pictures, we bid our gracious hosts, Joe and Marta, goodbye and headed east.  Our route took us through Joe and Marta's town, Johnson.  We didn't see much town, but this sign implies we were a half mile away from the hustle and bustle of downtown:

The first event of note for us today was crossing the Missouri River as we entered Missouri.  The bridge was under repair:

Actually, we crossed the Missouri River twice today.  This first crossing was well upstream on the river, so it didn't seem very big here:

We began to notice a significant increase in people and traffic now.

Our course today took us southward through St. Joseph and Kansas City in Missouri.  The weather prediction was for more "wintry" weather to push down the eastern midwest, so we decided to turn south and go down US 71 into Arkansas.  It would allow us to go through the Ozark Mountains and avoid any freezing weather.

When we arrived at the Arkansas border, it was all Ruth could do to capture the sign:

We made a reservation for a motel in Bentonville, AR, home of Wal-Mart.  While it had not been a really long day, it was a good place to stop for the night.