It could be Iowa couldn’t it?
Which is your cue to say how much you dislike driving across the Great Plains. Not me, I love seeing the vast uninterrupted farmland unfold as I drive, I enjoy the rolling hills as low as they may be, the silos…
…I like the rolling cornfields of the Midwest and if Brazilian highways were as smooth and easy as those in the States I’d be happy. Unfortunately BR 60 is variable, rarely smooth and mostly potholes and patched allowing us an average speed less than 40 mph.
We spent the night at the truck stop relying on our fridge and pantry for supplies though there was a restaurant on site.
The weather has been very mild making this fast paced drive to the Paraguayan border a bit easier. Almost 900 miles in three days with frequent stops to let Rusty rest otherwise he starts having the drive. 
The temperature has been in the low to mid 80s but not by any means humid or uncomfortable. Then we are reminded it’s rainy season.
It was a cloud burst, intense but mercifully brief with temperatures dropping to near 70.
The bad news is the rain didn’t make the highway any smoother. 
The locals are indifferent to the road surface but I’m guessing most of them have company cars someone else pays to keep on the road.
Or maybe they are just to crappy road surfaces. This makes me cringe.
This is Brazil far off the tourist route, farm roads and truck routes with a solitary gringo getting grumpy because he expects better roads this close to the capital. The scenery is still rolling and lush and green. 
I expected crap roads in Amazonia a region forgotten by the central government. But here?
I was wondering why there were tires painted white and buried in the ground. It looked like an air strip and sure enough… “North by Northwest” came to mind.
The fueling station:
They have plenty of soybeans to spray:
The good news is our electrical system is holding up well. We settled in for dinner at 93% charged, went to bed at 86% after running the air conditioner and Starlink and ran that and the fridge and my CPAP and the inverter all night and woke up at 6:30 to 54% charged. By lunch time after four hours driving we were back up to 94%. 
Starlink on the roof has improved our drive, we can download audio books as we go, navigate and I can even start my posts before the end of the day when we stop for a break. These uninhabited plains are like so many areas of South America and are internet black holes. 
Of course, were we on vacation we’d be happy to be off grid for a few days but this is like having internet access in your home, something you take for granted ( if you are reading these words).
In the truck stop in the evening I don’t have to set up the dish then take it down before going to sleep else it might get stolen…
Never heard of any of these places. We were making for Campo Grande a city about three or four hours from Paraguay. These places? Farm towns on the way.
I doubt though that on I-80 in Iowa you might meek a bicycle crossing the travel lanes and walking the wrong way into the truck stop. In Brazil? No problem.
Even the highway police are taking time off as we have passed a few checkpoints and there was nobody checking papers, not that I’m complaining.
The plan was to get to a gas station near the city of Campo Grande about 200 miles from Paraguay. The border is a strange one as it’s wide open. Hopefully I’ll have lots of photos tomorrow of one side of the street being Brazil and the other Paraguay in the city of Ponta Porã (“ponta poran”).
We didn’t notice at the time but we moved back an hour when we entered Mato Grosso Do Sul State and sunset suddenly came as 6:13 instead of 7:13. 
Before we started racing the sunset to get to our overnight stop we paused and rested Rusty so he doesn’t get fed up with the driving.
Mato Grosso means thick forest and in 1977 a chunk of the state broke off, called themselves Mato Grosso do Sul and made Campo Grande (big field) its capital. Aside from the time change from Goias State we found the countryside also changed a bit from agricultural cultivation to more ranching.
And so to bed. 205 miles to Paraguay. Happy Friday!
