August 5, 9:52 am, Centerville, MO

Julio is a madman- Mad, I tell you.

We're sitting in the 21 Diner, right in the heart of Centerville. Last night we slept on the big lawn in front of the Sheriff's Station / County Courthouse, which is also right in the heart of Centerville. Centerville is not very big.

Small town, but really nice. First settled by two white men, Henry Fry and Andrew Henry. (I don't know what the deal is with the Henry thing). The Courthouse that we slept in front of is not the original courthouse. The original courthouse was burned down by one of two Missouri militias who were fighting one another in the Civil War. A new courthouse was built, which, according to the town monument, "quickly met with a similar fate".

So the courthouse which stands today then they finally built, sometime in the 1870s. The end.

I talked for like half an hour today to an older gentleman named Don, who knows a fair amount about the town. He directed me to a water mill about a mile away. It's privately-owned, so there's no concession stand nearby, and no huge blacktop parking lot to accommodate the tourists. This mill, in Don's opinion, is the nicest mill in all of MO.

Also, by way of Don, I found something out about the new kind of heavy truck zooming around the street. They're not coal trucks, which I could see for myself. And they're not iron trucks, as I had theorized. No, this new kind of huge 'n' heavy lane-encroaching truck is: Lead truck! Great! I'm thrilled.

We stayed over in Centerville with two British east-bounders, Andy and Margaret. Andy warns us that traffic ahead may be slowed, because there is a big Donkey Rodeo. We offered Andy some apple wine, and he offered right back with some beer. And not warm ale, either, but good old cold Beast Ice. Over drinks, Andy told us to watch out, because between Ellington and Centerville are some of the nastiest drivers he and his wife have ever seen.
These drivers hoot, honk, flip you off, shout at you, and one of them in the opposing lane actually crossed the yellow line and aimed his car at Margaret, to scare her. Gulp gulp gulp!