This morning I woke up to fog - 6 AM and I couldn't see 100 yards. So I decided to handle it the way Raven (our cat) would. I went back to sleep hoping it would be better when I woke up.
Before I go on, I wanted to give a better impression of what the roads are like. But who wants to stop and take a picture in the middle of gettin' your turn grove on. So I decided to take pictures of my "chicken strips" to show how steep you have to turn on these roads.
That's the unscuffed part of the tire, and it's about 1/2 inch on the front wheel.
There's about 3/8" on the rear tire. The road is really making me lean the bike way over, and that's why I'm using so much tire. Should mean the middle part won't wear as fast, right?
Okay, so a couple more shots from the Queen Wilhelmina hotel:
Note the homey, unassuming lounge area off the lobby. Note also the picture of me in the mirror. This is an homage to Jan van Eyck, and his portrait "Arnolifini and Wife". (Look out - the engineer is going all art geeky on you.)
The picture by Jan van Eyck is a marriage license, and, by painting himself in the mirror, he is essentially portraying himself as a witness to the wedding. Okay, so he's a Dutch Master and I'm a novice Kodak Easycam user - other than that, it's just the same...
Oh, BTW they had one of these things out front. Being an engineer, even if it's not that kind of engineer, I had to take a picture or two of the cabin.
The cloud layer lifted just enough for me to leave. I left headed west on AR 88 - which turns into OK 1, and runs along the top of the mountain's ridge. The cloud deck was at 2450 feet - I figured this out from my GPS altitude, and the fact that I kept going in and out of the fog as the road went up and down. It was a little damp, and there was an occasional sprinkle, but nothing noteworthy. In 20 minutes I was down to the plateau level and riding east.
Today's roads were through forest, and while there wasn't as much vertical as yesterday, there were still some twists and turns before lunch. I decided to eat at a little place in the town of Story.
The woman who runs the place had a number of regulars who were telling her how to handle some electrical issues - not enough circuits for the drink coolers. It had that feel that some of the places my mom hangs in Maine has - the interaction of the local folks.
Then I met up with the famous Arkansas biker road, AR 7. At the intersection, while I was checking my map, a gentleman got my attention. He wanted to know if my bike was an RT, and I told him yes, 2000 rt-p police bike. Turns out he just got rid of his 2008 1200 rt, and the reason he gave was that the BMW dealer in Little Rock went belly up, and he had to go all the way to Benton to get it fixed, and that was just too far. He has a Suzuki SV650 as his bike now. He's been to Alaska and back, and he described the trip to me - left Arkansas, went to Texas, up along the rockies, to Baanf and Jasper, then some other places (I didn't quite hear 'cause I had my earplugs in).
Oh hey, that brings me to some things I'm learning about traveling with the bike. #1: bring less stuff!!
#2 Earplugs let me listen to the music w/o the wind noise, and that is much more relaxing for me.
#3 Pack the night before, so I can hit the road faster.
#4 Plan a layover day - I'm getting tired and the Queen Wilhelmina or Eureka Springs would be places I could easily spend a day loafing / recovering / exploring / relaxing, whatever.
#5 - I'm at my sharpest riding between 9 and 11 in the morning, and then I get a second wind about 3PM. Not so much for the sharp twisties - they get my attention, but I'm a little groggy after lunch.
Anyway, back to the trip. AR 7 is everything it's cracked up to be - through forest, some good twists, and when it's not twisting it's sweeping. Don said that lots of the roads in Arkansas were built by the WPA in the 30's, and that when they were getting permission to build, each farmer wanted the road to go near his house. So they twist to accommodate that. Turns out I went by a CCC camp, so there is New Deal evidence.
I did see a fair number of bikes today. I think this is more on the beaten path for bikes.
While I was trying to outrun a storm that was meandering up AR 7, I did stop to take a few pictures of Petit Jean river.
Speaking of New Deal, everyone wanted to take credit for the boat ramp that was built here:
The reason I wanted to check out this river, is that apparently the Petit Jean valley was made by this little bitty river, and that's one of the lookout sights I saw from Mount Magazine.
All for tonight. I'll take a crack at uploading some video to YouTube, pack, and then go to bed.
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