By the time we put the beer away Friday night, about 12 of us had arrived at the Harvey House.
We all awoke to no hot water and therefore cold showers to get our morning started.
About 9 or 10 of us left around 9am for the first ride.
We took AR 88 West along the Ouachita River all the way to Ar 27 at Washita.
Then took 27 north to 7 West and followed it into Ola. We stopped for fuel and water and a short break. There are several pictures that were taken in the parking lot while we discussed the ride and where we were planing to go from there, these photo's are on the FJROWNERS forum,Sorry, but there is a link to the thread in the post above mine.
It was decided that I needed a new tire, sooooo, I went on a tire hunt. Called 2 Yami dealers, several tire shops and finally found one at the Honda Dealer in Russellville.
Only catch is, they can't mount the tire on anything but a Honda!!!!! WHAT?????
I'm 400 miles from home and you won't mount it. NOPE. Sooooo, I called all the other dealers and said that I had found a tire and would they mount it. NOT TILL MONDAY... WHAT!!!! By the way, it is 11:30am Saturday Morning. I decide to go to the Honda Dealer and begg for mercy for riding a far surperior bike but can't they hook a brother up. After about 20 minutes of pleading my case, they agreed to mount the tire. 45 minutes later, I was in search of the group again.
I forgot to mention that 2 in our group were riding dual sport bikes and did the whole ride on fire roads and back country. One of them went for a swim and came back a little dirty,sooooo, it look like they had a great time as well.
We had decided to meet back at the Hotel at 3:30 to re-group. So I headed back down 27 to Dover and picked up 28 West all the way to Hwy 71 South and head south back to Mena and the Hotel. I arrived there at about 3:00, so I had a few minutes to relax and wait on the group. They showed up around 3:45 and we did some bench racing befor the afternoon ride.
Don't let these old guys fool you, grey hair, no Hair, they were fast. Very Fast!!!
At the begining of the moring, the pace was set at around 70-75(I think that was the same as the legal speed limit, not sure). I never saw it.
I just held onto the FJR and kept my focus. It all went by in a blurrrrrr. Sooooo,
I decided to let the big boys on the crotch rockets go out and play alone, during the afternoon ride. That would give me time to lick my wounds from showing up with a rear tire that was questionable and having to go fetch another.
We had a great time bench racing over pizza that evening while consuming small quantities of adult beverages. DID I MENTION THAT THESE GUYS ARE FAST!!!
Oh, and the hot water was back so we all got to take hot showers after a great day riding. That was nice.
Got up Sunday and several of us decided to head on back home, so we said our good byes and heading in our own directions.
I decided that I was going to take a new route back to Dallas.
I headed South on Hwy 71 back down to Hatfield Cove and picked up Hwy 4 West.
Picked up Hwy 259 in Oklahoma and headed south passing Broken Bow Lake. Great day ride, but I didn't try any of the back roads off 259, so not sure there yet.
Picked up I30 and slabbed it back to Dallas.
Great ride, great weather, great roads and best of all, a great group of guys to learn from.
Mark
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