Tuesday – Eureka Springs, Arkansas

The whole day was twisted, my GPS paid me back for my arrogance the other day but I ended up with a cheap place to stay and a lot of beers, a very long day and a very very very late night! The things I have to put up with to get a new tyre

Well, I had my first hot breakfast while on the road, this motel had a restaurant next door where I show a ticket and get bacon and egg on toast 🙂 Not bad at all either.

While I was packing the bike, I got a call from Charlie up in Eureka Springs, he did some calling around and in the end I organised for a new tyre to be shipped to a workshop near him. It is a Metzler ME880, apparently a Bias ply not a radial, so it should last longer at the expense of less traction when leant right over maybe. Reports say it is still quite sticky in the wet and dry, so I will try one. It was also on special, so it only cost $175 and the workshop will fit it for $20, so a saving all over 🙂

Charlie also asked if I wanted to meet for lunch and picked a small cafe in a place near me called Oark. As it was close and I had 3 hours to do 50 mile, I decided to take a short detour though some other roads via a loop.

First off I needed fuel so I did that and looked for some air as well, just because it was cold and the tyres were a bit low. Apparently another difference between home and here, at home free air at just about every servo, here it cost me 75c to fill up, what a rip off 😦

The first bit of ride west to Alma was not exciting, I took the minor road but there was still a bit of traffic and the speed limit is 55. I turned north at Alma, but somehow ended up on the interstate, but managed to get off at Rudy and head north on 71, which is what I wanted to be on.

The road had a lot of small hills and dales and a variety of curves, mostly high speed stuff, well I mean 55 of course all the way to Brentwood with a few road works as well 🙂

Now, at Brentwood I entered Elkins as the next stage into TomTom and it took me along this road. Now the other day I said I like to be in charge of my GPS, well this time I got tricked ‘real good’ as they say over here. My atlas and the GPS showed this road as paved, but it ran out? Normally if the road is unpaved it asks me if I want to continue, but there was no question asked and somehow I ended up here.

Now, the road was quite steep in parts and very rough as well with washouts quite often. It only went about 10 mile or so, but it was fun, although as I had slowed right down I was going to be late for lunch I think. The dotted part of the map is gravel. Now, after this I had small lane village roads through some nice farm country, where I spotted a deer!

Here it is in close up, not big, but it could still do some damage, after I took this, another 3 ran across after him.

After this I took it a bit easier as now I know for a fact there are deer here, and the roads were great as well, some nice windy bits through the mountains towards Cass, but there were road works here as well and I had to stop and wait, it was 1pm and I was late, but I won’t be hurrying, I had time to send Charlie a text message, although I found out later there is no phone service in Oark so he did not get it.

Some more twistys before getting into Oark at about 1.30, only a bit late 🙂

I met up with Charlie, who had become hungry and already ordered, the food was great when mine arrived as well, thanks for the feed Charlie. 🙂 This little cafe has been continually open for over a hundred years, not a bad effort considering it is in a small out of the way place.

We had a bit of a chat, with the result that after a phone call, Charlie had set me up with a motel room in Eureka Springs for nothing, how cool is that 🙂 He left soon after, but not before giving me some advice as to a fun ride to get there as it was still early and why waste a good day 🙂 We arranged to meet around 5pm or so for some beers. Making times like that can be bad for your health I reckon!

So, I now headed south east towards Clarksville and the roads were fun with a few scattered views through the trees of the valleys below.

Some of the corners were a bit more corkscrewed than normal as well, you learn very quickly to obey the speed limit advice signs on these 🙂

Then a bit more country side as well as one of these things. I have seen a few now, they look like multi story high rise bird houses, but I have a feeling they may be sirens for storm/tornado warnings or something like that.

Now, I know I am lost, first it was Darwin, then the North Pole, now I am in London, although it was bigger than this when I was last there 🙂

There was a nice long causeway over the dam near Russelville.

Before, of course, east of London is Dover.

I am glad I turned north here because east of Dover from memory is the English Channel and of course no snorkle on board 🙂

This was getting better though, these are the roads I want to ride.

There was a good start to the ride up before I had a wizz stop at a funny location, although it was closed down. I only saw the double decker dunny afterwards 🙂

This road also seemed to follow some ridges where the farms were and the views were nice. Check out the centre line of the road though, that is rumble strips and they are gouged out of the road surface, very ‘not nice’ when running wide in a corner!

There were some other bikes having fun, but they rode too slow most of the time, so I had fun passing them 🙂

Kidney flush time again, now what a stupid place to put a campground turn off, right smack bang in the middle of a hairpin bend!

And then some more fun roads to get to Berryville where I turned west to get to Eureka Springs around 6.30pm, hmmm late again huh!

Late was not an issue, finding the damm motel was. I knew the name and found it under the POI in my TomTom, but it was not there, so when I called Charlie, he gave me directions from where I ‘actually’ was, this was good except we had a misunderstanding of where I was 🙂 My next phone call from a few miles away got me heading back the way I came and eventually found the 1876 Inn, about a mile from where the GPS told me it was. I was duly booked in, I had bought a Subway for dinner and had that while waiting for Charlie. He took me to a local pub called the Lumberyard for a couple of beers which seemed to have the correct theme 🙂

There was a group of girls having a birthday party and taking photos so I managed to get a bit involved, that is Angie and Danielle 🙂

The bar staff is Mary and Wendi and one of me and Charlie

Oh, Angies back for seconds 🙂

Charlie had to head home, but I elected to stay for a while as there was no rush to go anywhere in the morning. I chatted with a couple of blokes for a while, this is John on the left and Guide on the right, Guide is from Alaska and knows the area real good. His advice is to do the Prudhoe Bay run in early July, before the permafrost melts and turns to slush/mud.

The night progressed/degenerated from there and a few more beers and some pool and some different people and different bars and and and! 🙂

Let’s just say that 4am is a late one and leave it at that, although I did get back to my own motel bed 🙂

Day – 315 miles and 507 km
Trip – 9,709 miles and 15,625 km

Cheers
TravellingStrom
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