Thanks, Marcus! Appreciate the feedback.
Day 2
The trek through all the best winding mountain roads in western Arkansas begins. But not before one of the motel residents comes by to see me off.
I'm guessing Nikki can tell us the brand of dog this is.
I wrote out the route, and in my crappy handwriting, there was bound to be some mistakes. Sure enough, I missed a turn at Amity, the first town I got to, and went six miles out of the way. I backtracked, and shortly came across CR 346, which soon turned into a logging road.
Undaunted, the V-Strom and I soldiered on. The paper map showed a bridge crossing a narrow part of Gray Lake, but when I finally got to the end of the line (literally),
there were remnants of a bridge from years ago.
On the way back to HWY 84, I noticed on my notes that I had written CR347. Why was I thinking CR346? Well, that's more like it.
I'll let someone else caption this one.
Road 346 led to the Old Amity Road and that did carry me across Lake Hamilton to Hot Springs.
By now it was after noon, and I stopped by a Suzuki dealer to see if they had a 2012 V-Strom 650. They did not. But they were able to suggest a great place to eat, Stoby's. The building has a couple of railroad dining cars built into it. The food was really good, and so was the service and atmosphere. They had a small model train that ran around the room on a track overhead. They even had a steam whistle you can blow at the entrance. Very impressive place.
Back to the route: Arkansas really is a fantastic place to ride a motorcycle.
An old one lane bridge
I stopped to shoot the breeze with an older gentleman running a country store. It had a screen door at the entrance. Felt very nostalgic to open a wooden screen door as opposed to a metal and glass door. He explained that country stores like his are slowly fading away, soon only pictures will be left. I picked up some eye drops, AAA batteries, and an RC Cola.
Because I had been on the bike 5 hours and still have only covered 100 miles, I decided to motor on through other photo ops. It was 4pm when I got to Eureka Springs. This was a very interesting town. They had their very own Occupy Wall Street hoo-hah going on.
Seriously, can't a guy get away from this stuff?
There is a section of Eureka Springs along HWY 23 that is very unusual--the street is very narrow and the shops fronts are right on the edge of the street, with only a narrow sidewalk separating them. There seems to be a lot of arts, antiques, and other touristy shops in this section. I think this is where all the hippes in Arkansas come to rest. It also appears to be round zero for bikers. Just about every motel and hotel had an icon or silhouette of a cruiser or motorcycle on the marquee, with plenty of inducements like "Bikers welcome!" One place called Biker Rest proudly regaled the tourists with "Bikers Only". Since I'm not a biker, I continued on to Missouri.
The first 40 miles into Missouri were so much like Arkansas; I thought maybe they got the borders wrong. But, then the real Missouri came along, mostly flat, some gentle grades, but nothing like Arkansas. At least the gas is cheap!
That's it for today. Tomorrow I plan to chew up some mileage, since I can't extend this trip past next Monday.
Map link: Days 1 & 2
Close calls: did not see a curb divider splitting lanes in Hot Springs, clipped it with the rear wheel at an angle. Seriously, I can't see why it was even there. Very strange.
Song of the Day:
Like Steve McQueen -- Sheryl Crow
Philosophical thought: Someday may never come, but today is here right now.
Dining: Stoby's Restaurant: Cheddar Cheese fries, Reuben sandwich (I'm thinking about it right now), Italian cream cake: A