Arkansas trip day 4 - Eureka Springs to Clarksville

Day 4, I woke up in Eureka Springs Arkansas.  Just a beautiful resort town, with lots of interesting architecture, though there's a lot of kind of kitschy stuff.  I stayed at the New Orleans hotel, which is a Victorian style building - here are some pictures of the hotel, my room, and the surrounding street.

My room, w/ a jacuzzi tub.

The outside of the hotel, the stairway down to the bike, and miscellaneous street shots.

This is the stairway I had to walk up and down to get from the hotel parking lot to the street.

Note the stone foundations.

I'll have to do the pictures later - my internet connection is pretty iffy.

Oh, yesterday while I was in Eureka Springs, a police car pulled over a Harley for "loud pipes".  I was on my way to my bike, and loading it up, and after the Harley roared off, the cop said "He should have bought a Beemer".  Because Eureka Springs is both a resort and in a canyon, there are lots of complaints about loud piped bikes.  

Got some phone pictures of the place I ate breakfast - they have cool art, they're in a stone foundation basement, and they had grits that were really good.  Oh, and you can tell you're in a different part of Arkansas - I asked the waitress what the grits w/ cheese were like, and she said "Have you ever had Polenta?"  They probably don't make that comparison at the Waffle House.

Anyway, today, after negotiating "mountain road", an 18% grade in Eureka Springs, then I went on a ride on mountain roads for real.  The ride on SR 23 over to where the mountain roads started was scenic and sweepy, and I saw lots of other bikes there.  

I was able to photograph the entire town of Kingston.  It's a square in the middle of an intersection.

Then I started seeing the signs - "steep and twisting road next 5 miles" , curves with a suggested speed of 10 mph, and what Don tells me is the "tail of the pig" (instead of the tail of the dragon).  

The roads were almost perfect.  

There was one switchback of the 10 mph variety that had debris from what must have been a completely destroyed tire.  A few pieces of knobby tread, and then just tiny shards of rubber everywhere, kind of an involuntary burnout.  

The BMW performed really well today, and leaned into the turns nicely.  I got feeling really comfortable on the corners.  Probably because it was a holiday there was a fair bit of traffic.  I was using the GPS to anticipate where there would be passing opportunities so I could get out in front and cut loose.  As the day wore on that was less of a problem.  I think the pig's tail is pretty much just a motorcycle road.  I stopped to take a picture and there was a guy who owned land there, who wants to start a biker restaurant.  

I found a really funky place to eat lunch.  It was called the Fallsville one-stop.  The guy who runs it makes sandwiches to order - I had a brisket sandwich, with pepper jack cheese, and a diet coke for $5.  He was an interesting guy to talk to - and I would definitely go back there again. Oh, and there were hummingbird feeders, and they were all over the place, flitting about like gnats, only much nicer.

I have to say I wimped out at the end.  Don's last little loop was going to take me up to 8 PM, and I was looking forward to getting in the motel room, showering, and laying down.  I felt I got the full experience.  Then I had a pleasant surprise at the motel - there was an outside door to the room, so I could park outside the room and not carry bags up the stairs.  And the laundry was right next door.  Only downside is the internet not working very well.

Well, I'll do more next time I get a better connection, including the pictures.

Hey, it's 6 AM and the internet is working much better now.  I'll go back and put in the pictures, and then add some more.

Oh, BTW, I'm listening to the satellite radio on my bike and what should I hear?  "The night they drove old dixie down" or Virgil Cain, or whatever it's called.  I think it's Joan Baez singing.  Seemed really appropriate at the time.

Ok, I'll try and write to all y'all tonight if I have a good internet connection.  TTFN