The small roads.

April 13, Mountain View.

Rectification, and counter-rectification. We play the smallest towns, dots on the map, and travel the smallest roads still passable with tractor trailers, and on all these small roads, in all the small towns, even crossing the Ozarks, I could always find NPR on my radio dial, counter to what I'd written earlier about that dreaded silence. Today we crossed the Ozarks again, this time from north to south and further east, and for the first time in more than two weeks, ever since we left Texas really, NPR disappeared from the dial. Cell phones went dead as well for a good part of the trail.
We took the Sylamore scenic byway, highway 5, a feast for the eyes, and the morning sun streaming in. We rode by, then crossed, the White river, drove through tiny river towns, Castle Rock's hundred-yard-long downtown like a cardboard movie set, log homes, restored buildings housing antiques shops and Ozark crafts shops, and the forest.
It is 38 degrees here today, it makes it hard for performers to work, flimsy flannel circus costumes a poor shield against the cold.