Another long day in the truck, but with any luck the last one for a couple days now. Finally made it into the town of Hermann Missouri early this evening. No rain today thankfully, but there were actual piles of snow lining a few sections of the road and at the ends of several parking lots. 'SNOW' for crying out loud!!!! What in the world was I thinking when I first conceived of coming this far north this early in the year? I could still be lounging around under palm trees in mid Florida. Oh well, what is done....

   Found the city park campground with no problem as I remember passing it a couple years ago on my way to somewhere. One other person here, so plenty of places to park. They have full facilities at nearly all the sites it looks like, but I decided on one with only electric for tonight. Chances are good it will get below freezing later on and there is no need to hook up a hose if it's just going to turn into a ribbon of ice. The same with the sewer connection. There will be plenty of time for that if I stay for a day or two.

   One thing I did do almost immediately though was to start up my two electric heaters. After 4 days and nights of cold weather and no external heat it took several hours to actually warm everything up to a tolerable level  again. Right now the exterior temp. is reading a balmy 33 degrees and the radio earlier on said there may be snow flurries tonight in St Louis, which is only some 40-50 miles to the east of here.

   Have spent most of the evening downloading pictures from the last couple of days and sorting them all out. Did get a few of my walking tour around Natchez the other day posted on fb this evening. But my Internet connection is giving me a few fits this evening. It says it has a real strong signal, but it took more than an hour to upload 20 photo's just to Picassa, my photo web site. I didn't even try to upload them further into this document. I'm tired tonight and I just don't want to deal with them right now.... some time tomorrow most likely.

   In the meantime I'm excited to explore the town a little bit tomorrow. I first came to Hermann via canoe down the Missouri River. It was, I believe, Aug-Sept of 1982 and I had started a solo trip in mid Montana and was headed down river as far as I could go. The year before 4 friends and I had done a 72 day long canoe trip down the same river, completing 1,250 miles and ending up in Sioux City Iowa. I wanted to go at least to St Louis, and in the end that is where I ended up.

   Anyway; I pulled in here for supplies and a chance to walk around a bit. I had no idea that one of my grandmothers had grown up in this area or I would of spent some more time here. But now I'm back and I'm ready to wander all the streets and look at the cute little buildings and shops and cafes. And if I grow tired of that there is always the river to go watch and throw a few rocks into. They even have a neat little park down there now where once there was only a concrete boat ramp and dirt parking lot.

   But right now it is time for some much needed sleep. I'm not sure what it is with semi-truck drivers, but they seem to take great delight in pulling in right beside me at a rest area and leaving their engines and compressors going all night long, even if there are plenty of other spaces available further away. But I've grown wise to them now.... now I have earplugs. Ha!