For those not familiar with the area... here is what I wrote about my last trip to Arkansas.
Arkansas - Spring 2006
This is a trip that my friend, Doug, takes every year and for the last two years I've had some lame reason why I couldn't go. You know some responsibilities, such as work, have a tendency to really make a mess of riding plans. This year I decided no matter what, I was going on the trip. However, on Tuesday I received an e-mail from Doug advising me the forecast for the weekend was calling for rain. This was bad because Doug does not ride in the rain. For three days I kept a very close eye on the forecast.
Thursday night rolls around and things are looking better as there is now just a slight chance of rain each day. I receive another e-mail from Doug and he's ready to go. I agreed to meet Doug at the Park-N-Ride just outside of Jefferson City at 8:30 AM.
Because I hate to be late and because I woke up at 4:00 AM and couldn't go back to sleep, I arrived at our meeting location at around 8:15 AM where I found Doug waiting. It appears that Doug also can't sleep well the night before a trip. After admiring how clean our bikes were, we quickly realized they wouldn't stay clean long.
At exactly 8:30 AM, we headed off towards our first stop at a small motorcycle shop outside Rolla. Doug has been thinking about getting a new bike and he wanted to get some information on the Moto Guzzi Norge.
Our second stop would be in Winona, a small town on Highway 19 about forty-five miles north of the Arkansas border. A quick business meeting in Winona at the Apple Barrel Inn would later get me a contract for my computer business.
After lunch and my meeting, Doug and I were again heading south towards Arkansas. Because we are getting older and need more frequent breaks, we stopped again after going through Thayer. As we were walking back to our bikes, Doug leaned down to pull what he thought was a small rock out of the tread of his tire.
If you know Doug you know he has a strange sense of humor and likes to joke about finding nails in other rider's tires, so when he told me he had a nail in his tread I figured he was joking. I quickly realized he wasn't joking and was ready to call off the trip.
Luckily our break location was next door to a tire shop, so we asked the owner if he would plug Doug's tire. Because of liability issues, this wouldn't be an option. However, the owner told me I could borrow his tools to fix the tire myself.
I managed to pull out the nail and get the plug in fairly quickly which resulted in losing only two pounds of air from Doug's tire. Total cost for the repair, including tipping the owner, was a whopping $5.00. Doug wasn't crazy about riding on the plug, but after getting turned down at the only motorcycle shop in the area it was either ride on the plug or go home. Lucky for me Doug decided to ride on the plug for tonight and check it again in the morning.
We arrived in Mountain Home, Arkansas around 5:00 PM and we quickly checked into our hotel. The forecast was calling for a chance of rain and the desk clerk told us we could park our bikes in the hallway if we wanted to keep them dry.
After diner, Doug called our other friend, Darren, who was going to meet us in the morning. Darren planned to ride down with us on Friday, but his daughter had a soccer game Friday evening and would have to wait to join us. Doug wasn't convinced Darren would really show up Saturday morning because it would require Darren to leave Columbia at around 4:00 AM and ride non-stop to Mountain Home. Darren reassured Doug he would be at the hotel in morning, so after watching some of the NASCAR Craftsman Truck race it was lights out.
Saturday morning, as we were getting ready for a full day of riding, Doug tells me he hears a BMW motorcycle in the parking lot. Now I find this hard to believe because the TV is on, the AC is on and most BMW's are very quite, but as I move the curtain back I see Darren parking his bike.
Since we wanted to get an early start, it was a quick breakfast at the hotel and then we were off to get some fuel. I also needed to get some pseudo ephedrine because my allergies were really getting bad.
After fueling up, Doug got us lost for about fifteen minutes as we looked for Highway 201 south of Mountain Home. We quickly found our way and we spent the next couple of hours on some of the best roads outside of Deals Gap. One road in particular, Push Mountain Road, was so smooth we had to ride some sections twice. We also found a nice area to park and take some photos of each other coming around a corner.
I always ride with a helmet, but I couldn't resist the urge of getting some photos of me without one since Arkansas is a helmet optional state. Doug also used this opportunity to let the air rush through his hair.
After our fun on Push Mountain Road, we were off to Jasper. It was around noon when we pulled into town and there must have been at least sixty other bikes parked around the courthouse. We enjoyed a nice lunch at a North Arkansas landmark, the Ozark Cafe.
We took Highway 74 west out of Jasper and this is one of the few roads that have the correct suggested speed warning signs for the corners. Most of signs we had encountered to this point suggested speeds of between 20 MPH and 45 MPH for the corners and most of those speeds could easily have been doubled. However, on this road we found a couple of 10 MPH and 15 MPH sign that were indeed the correct suggested speed. Needless to say, we came into a few of the corners a little faster than we should have.
Doug and Darren don't like stopping for photos, but because of my allergies I found myself making a few extra stops. One of the stops afforded me the opportunity to click a few photos of the views.
Our second day ended around 5:00 PM in Eureka Springs after about 350 miles of riding. The weather so far has been a little warm, but it has been dry so we can't complain. We enjoyed another good meal and then it was lights out.
Day three was supposed to be a quick 300 mile ride back home, but we ran into a couple of problems. When we left Eureka Springs the forecast was calling for a chance of rain and cooler temperatures. Just outside of Springfield we started to hit a little rain and with the cooler temperatures, we decided to stop and get into our rain gear.
Even though Doug doesn't like to ride in the rain, with our rain gear on we are ready for whatever we rode into. What we rode into about 10 minutes later was sunshine, so we stopped again and took off the rain gear. When we got to the lake we had to stop again, not for the weather, but rather the traffic. MoDOT had the great idea to close one lane of Highway 54 for repairs. Now traffic is bad at the lake on any summer weekend, but with one lane closed it meant stop and go traffic for almost an hour.
Our total mileage for the trip was just shy of 1000 miles and the trip was a lot of fun for me, other than suffering from some very bad allergies.
