West Plains MO to Russellville KY - East Millers Meets West Miller

Rained last night but it was still pretty warm this morning. I slept like a baby again so did not get going until 8:30. Found an ATM for more cash (I only have one credit card so play it safe with cash). Missouri is also a big state and the "meet up with the brothers deal was I would text after 1pm and see if we ended up within striking distance. Missouri actually got prettier as I took some small 2 laners with big roller coaster loop-the-loops which was fun. Small farms (hobby farms) with beef cows and old tumbledown bans. Trees got bigger and lusher and pretty soon it looked like back home in Vermont. I didn't go through a lot of bigger towns, but my sense is things are a little depressed here, but it sure is pretty.
I stopped for coffee a couple times since I had a lot of turns. The other weird thing with Missouri is their small roads are letters instead of numbers (A, J, BB, DD, etc).
I ran into another BMW guy doing the same thing i was doing except he was coming from Idaho and going to Florida, trying to plan around the thunderstorms and figure out the weird roads.
I found the really long narrow old steel bridge that got me across the Mississippi River and got a nice view of all the barge traffic. The water looked low with a lot of exposed banks. I was surprised that you immediately cross the Ohio

River on another long skinny old bridge.
A lot of corn was being "picked" I assume since it was brown and dried up, but the big John Deere harvesters were running up and down the fields filling trucks. There is something they grow that has a leaf like corn, but has a big brown tassel. I thin it's sorghum and they have not harvested it yet. It has been growing since Kansas.
I stopped for coffee and to check on my brothers progress and the ground was soaked. A thin but intense weather front had blasted through here. I checked the radar and the front was just ahead of me so I sat and enjoyed a second cup since it made no sense going east. I burned a half hour there and then took a zig-jag route toward Bowling Green. I stopped again and my brothers had just got into a motel in Russellville KY before the same front hit them, so Russellville it was.
I pulled in an hour later and they were just getting fresh laundry from the nice lady at the front desk (That Miller charm and a few bucks I assume). We walked across he road to the local place and then had a couple PBRs and cigars. They have been having a great time and I think the only plan is to somehow intercept those 150-200 people on 100 year old motorcycles racing across country.