ARKansas - June 2015

[emptysea]

Day 4 - Eureka Springs, AR to Harrison, AR

16 June 2015

"Floatin' down that old river boy, leaves me feelin' good inside,
Floatin' down that old river boy, tryin' to get to the other side,
Yesterday is slowly fadin',
I been waitin', now forever, for this ride.

Ride the river in this boat, ride the river.
Ride the river in this boat, ride the river." - from the aptly named JJ Cale/Eric Clapton song "Ride the River"

Laura walked out of The Trail's Inn office and said to those of us walking in for the complimentary breakfast, "Don't bother". I peaked in anyway, and found on the small check-in counter three dispenser bins filled with dried cereal, a coffee urn, a selection of foil-covered plastic juice cups, and a few sweet rolls wrapped in cellophane. I shouldn't have bothered. Fortunately, there was a nice little diner across the way. Not much to look at, really. Just a free standing sign-on-a-post in front with the unambitious name "Pancake's Place Family Restaurant" printed in brown letters against a translucent yellow, though some may say gold, plastic background. Over the door and against the white frame building was another sign, this time in painted wood, announcing "Pancakes + Waffles". Adjacent to this sign was, inexplicably, a plastic actual size replica of the front end of a red 1959 Studebaker Lark tacked flat to the wall at a racy 45-degree angle. The food was good. In an ironic twist, the breakfast buffet option had neither pancakes nor waffles. They had eggs and some sides, though, and I think that, for the two of us, with tip, it was $10.00. Maybe $12. Didn't ask if they had tea.

A side note about ride planning: Glen likes to have buy-in from the other riders on routes he plans. I'm the same way. I think he does this to be more inclusive. I do it because it tends to keep the post-ride griping to a minimum.

Laura had arranged for us to kayak on the Buffalo River this day on our way to Harrison. The Buffalo Outdoor Center was all set for us, but Tropical Storm Bill and the monsoonal-style storms hammering the area for the past week or more meant that river levels were unusually high. High water is generally fast water and it was highly unlikely that we were going to ride the river. However, the outfitter's rules were that we would only get our deposit back if the river conditions were prohibitive. Since we had to leave Eureka Springs before they opened in order to make our reservation time, we decided to ride to the outfitter. If we were lucky, we'd be able to kayak. If not, we'd get the deposit back.

The morning's route, which Glen proposed to us at breakfast, was designed as a fun way to take us to Ponca, AR where the outfitter was located. His plan was basically Michael Jordan to Steve Fuller/Kyle Schwarber to Leslie Frazier to Jim Dooley (23 to 412 to 21 to 43) and taking Jose Cardenal/Walt Harris (127) as a short cut between 23 and 412. That was the plan as I recall it. Until the road closures, detours, and standing water changed them.

Route (I think) 23-412-21-43
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The roads where beautiful. This part of Arkansas is very hilly, not exactly what I'd call mountainous even though the rivers and roads are carved through forested limestone mountains. A little south of where we were riding is a 19 mile stretch of AR23 named "Pig Tail Scenic Byway" which we planned to ride the following day. The section of AR23 north of the Pig Trail has plenty to offer for the motorcyclist except for the porcine name. Well paved. Plenty of curves. Lots of elevation changes. Forests. Farmland. Rivers. It was hard to imagine that the Pig Trail could be any more pretty than this.

As we rode along our 50 mile or so route, the sun came out in earnest and we, or at least I, began to speculate that we may actually get to kayak on the Buffalo River after all. However, those thoughts left almost as quickly as they came as we started to encounter work crews pushing mud off the road with bulldozers and creeks swelling to the very tops of the bridges over which we crossed them. Some of the swelling could not be contained and we were detoured around at least one crossing, maybe more. When we were very close to the Buffalo Outdoor Center, reddish-brown mud crossed the entire roadbed and we took our bikes through a long, slippery puddle to get to our destination. The water wasn't too deep, a few inches below the bottoms of my pegs, but deep enough to put a decent rooster tail up behind each bike. I was riding sweep and remember wishing my camera on a lanyard still worked. This was, and probably will be, the closest this crew ever comes to "off-road" riding.

Dry Docked
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Dirty Bike #1
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Dirty Bike #2
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Well, we arrived at the outfitters and our trip was indeed cancelled due to the speed and height of the river. We hung out in their very nicely appointed shop and showroom for awhile and then turned our attention and our bikes north and a little east to Harrison.

(Day 4 to be continued...)