The Show Me State

Pittsburg to Springfield

New State: Missouri!

Pittsburg was a huge town!  They had a movie theater!  And 20,000 people!  The movie theater part was golden; we saw the new Harry Potter movie last night and it was good.  

Downtown Pittsburg

Not so good: camping in a public park in the hot, humid, Kansas night.  However, I don’t feel so bad about these nights when I remind myself that we’re getting free lodging and saving money and helping more people affected by AIDS.  I can totally deal with sleeping in a soggy tent.  

Anyway, to the positive side of things: couch surfing!  I.  Love.  Couch surfing.  I mean, sure, camping for free in public parks is great, but I can only brush my teeth in so many gas station bathrooms before I go insane.  Thanks to couch surfing, today I don’t have to!

When we were in Eureka, Dave contacted a man named Chris in Springfield after our other couch surfing arrangement fell through.  Chris called Dave within two hours of Dave’s email, and apologized for the delayed response (what delayed response??), but that he was at the hospital with his wife, who had just given birth to their first son.  The story gets weirder.

It turns out that Chris had been following Austin’s blog and knew about the ride!  He was blown away that we had contacted him.  He couldn’t host us at his house (apparently newborns make it difficult to host couch surfers, who knew?), but he set us up with showers at a local university, a floor to sleep on in his church, and a delicious lasagna dinner with his wife, son, and parents.

We discussed Springfield’s waste management program a bit (of course), and I learned about their new single stream recycling initiative to encourage more people to recycle.  Also, it turns out that the city has a yardwaste recycling program.  Residents can bring their grass clippings, brush, and (shorter than four foot) tree branches to the yardwaste recycling center.  There, the recycling center puts the branches through a chipper, and resells the wood chips to Springfield residents.  The smaller yard clippings also go through a chipper, but they end up in wind rows, where they are composted.  The finished compost product is also resold to residents.  

The yardwaste recycling center

Food waste would further enrich the compost product, but they don’t exactly have a food waste collection program.  One step at a time.