49: Unpredictable
Sandy Island Sanctuary, Foley, Missouri F O L E Y, M O At the intersection of the Great River Road and Route 54, I spot Atlas Café. An ATM by the front door means cash-only. And cash-only means uniqueness, so I swing in on a whim. The Atlas Café is neatly arranged, clean, and with throwback posters on the wall. Nearly everyone is wearing a camo or John Deere hat. It’s full of customers and a lone, skinny, fake-blonde waitress is scrambling to keep us all content. She could use some help but gets an A for effort. Shouldn’t all these customers be in church on a Sunday morning? What’s also unique is that the Atlas Café is starkly located on the edge of the Mississippi River floodplain. On one side of the road is undisturbed forest. But across the road begins five miles of cleared, glass-flat bottomlands all the way to the river’s edge – prime land farmed by many of the people I’m eating with. After fini...