The nicest people in America live in Missouri. A Missouri campground proved it.
You would’ve thought it was Christmas. And I was the person who was alone on Christmas. Everyone just generally jolly. I watch as strangers become friends and it looks effortless. Everyone helps each other. People are offering me help setting up camp in the 20 mph winds, offering me coffee the next morning from their RVs, at least four people ask how it was in my tent last night as they pass by on their way to a vault toilet. Then a woman offers me breakfast—says “bacon and eggs” and I’m sold after the night I just had. I wander over to their campsites—a friend group (two women, three men in their 50s) who met up here, all driving huge RVs, full setup. They’re drinking coffee and orange juice and Bloody Marys and working from a grill that looks professional enough to open a diner. They grab more Crisco, food is sizzling, and they tell me they’re heading up the road in a few hours for a bus tour of the wineries and distilleries in Weston. They pile a plate of food for me and we walk over to a campfire behind one of the campers, with a huge flatscreen TV going on the RV itself.
“I saw the back of your car and said ‘O she’s full-time,’” one of the guys tells me—goes on to tell me he was a trucker in the ‘70s and has been everywhere, got grandfathered in when CDLs became a thing. Also talks about his gastric bypass and his sleep apnea prior to that and the bike accident when he blacked out at the wheel because he had undiagnosed high blood pressure (all health conditions were related in his story).
“What you’re leaving out is you used to pass out mid-sentence all the time.”
“That’s narcolepsy,” a woman chimes in.
“Did you sleep in your tent?”
“Yeh.”
“What do you do for safety?”
“Please tell me you have a gun” the other woman says under her breath.
“I should have a gun. I sleep with a knife and bear mace.”
“They say wasp spray—wasp spray is better and it shoots 15 feet.”
“That’s really brave.”
“Have you ever run into the same person twice?”
“No, but that’s a good question” and makes me laugh.
They’re basically going around a circle, asking me questions.
“I work for a newspaper.”
“Those still exist?”
“Do you run into people doing what you’re doing?”
“Not out of a car…”
They all reference TikTok and the weirdos on TikTok and how I should never post from where I’m at or where I’m about to be (this I know).
“Lotta weirdos out there—just read the comments.”
“Have you run into any weirdos? Anything that scared you?”
“We are the weirdos—we’re right here,” and we all laugh over bacon and eggs and sausage and potatoes—and I try a soybean from a field because one of the guys insisted (“When are you gonna get the opportunity to eat the bean right out of the pod?”) (while I’m thinking honestly, probably in just about every state in America) (it tasted like plastic).
Remembering the map I’d seen, I ask, “Isn’t there supposed to be a river here?”
“We’re in it.”
“What?”
“This is the riverbed.”
“It’s that low?!”
“No they re-route the rivers, whenever there’s a big curve in them.”
As I leave, I see the camp hosts who helped me with my rain fly yesterday pass by on the other side of the campground in their little golf cart, both of them waving at me. I had to drive around the outskirts of the park, just to be sure there was no river. It’s true. It’s all farm fields now.
✦ I’m in the part of the country now where the weather stays for days. It has been gray, rainy, and damp for almost a full week now.
✦ The Sand Hills of Nebraska were amazing, especially near the wilderness refuge areas near/along Route 83. One of those roads I wouldn’t mind driving again—although many areas have no cell service. The whole land tinted golden amber, even the trees—endless rolling land, tall grass, cows on these huge sand mounds that rise and dip like waves, with the occasional marsh or lake. Very windy.
✦ Weston, Missouri, as it turns out, is worth seeing—a small, historical town about an hour out from Kansas City, with cool little shops (vintage, country stores, farm stores, candle stores), distilleries, wineries, an underground bar (used to be a speakeasy during Prohibition), and, the day I was there, a tobacco festival that I accidentally walked in on because I followed the sound of some good live country music coming out of a big agriculture outbuilding.
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These are awesome! Get that wasp spray!