Sort of slept in...at least, for me. Woke up at 7:30 a.m. and took SR7N from Arkadelphia to Hot Springs about 8:15 a.m. Very overcast with mist and haze thick in the air. Roads were wet so I “armored” up and scooted.
About ten miles out of Hot Springs I passed this local bar. Thought the Adult Day Care was an interesting twist. Plus one would suspect that people who drink in the day time drink quite a bit.
Seems it didn't work. This sign was also there.
Hot Springs is a neat place! Rolled in about 9:00 and absolutely loved the old buildings and homes. The downtown area is a plethora of shops. Do NOT bring your wife here unless your credit cards are maxed out. If you do, they soon will be. There must be two miles of shops selling everything on the planet and all located conveniently right downtown. Hot Springs was a real gambling and spa center from its beginning. In the thirties through the sixties and, probably, up to the advent of legal gambling along the Mississippi, this was an “open” town where the mob was concerned. No one family held sway, they all “shared,” much as they did in Las Vegas until Howard Hughes legitimized gambling as a business in the 1980s. Bet there's still some very high stakes gambling going on there.
West Mountain (Hot Springs National Park) rises almost from the center of the shopping area and is a wonderful drive. Actually, it a wonderful ride, but you can’t get going very fast. (We absolutely love those signs that say "No Vehicles Over 30 Foot In Length.") The turns are sharp (aw…ain’t that terrible).
The road winds its way to the top using switch-back after switch-back until you
reach the top.
It ’s a beautiful view though overcast today. The ride down is a good as the one up.
I stay on SR7N out of Hot Springs heading up through the Ouachita and Ozark National Forests. The first twenty-five to thirty miles of road is a motorcyclist’s worst nightmare. Just outside of Fountain Lake I made that observation consciously, realizing that there was a driveway or crossroad about every hundred yards. This is the sort of situation that hurts motorcycle riders. Sure enough, ten minutes later in Fountain Lake I’m going along about forty mph and there’s a guy in an old station wagon on my right on a cross street. He’s looking to his right (not at me) trying to judge when the traffic going his way will let him out. For some reason I just knew he was going to be a problem, and, sure enough, he was. Whenever he saw an open spot to his right he turned and looked right through me at the opening behind me. This is what always happens, they just don’t see you. The stupid asses are looking for cars not obstacles. So out he comes.
Fortunately, my recognition of the potential caused me to slow somewhat so I grabbed the clutch and pressed my horn button with my left hand while choking the right front brake lever like an anaconda and standing on the rear foot brake pedal. This latter action caused the rear tire to lock up and screech like a banshee until I realized what was happening and reset it.
Between the screech of the tire and my 120db horn the guy realized I was there and managed to slam on his brakes before he totally blocked my way. I swerved toward the now empty center, applied some throttle and pulled around him while looking him in the eye and screaming “You dumb s.o.b!” at the top of my lungs. He heard that too. He gave me that “I’m sorry I just didn’t see you deer-in-the-headlights look” they usually give the ones they don’t kill.
After passing the side-road gauntlet the road (and ride) was great.
It’s about 140 miles of jaunt through the country on winding two-lane road. It’s pine forest interspersed with small towns every so often, and pull outs allowing views of the Ozark hills. I think they call them mountains here, but I’ve seen mountains…and these ain't them. But the
views are quite nice.
I passed quite a few stands of these shrubs along the highway. They look like what we used to call "Red Tips." That's as scientific as I get on plant names. In any event whatever they are, they were blooming and very pretty.
At least pretty if they weren't in your yard. If they're red tips they require constant cutting back or they grow out of sight.
The blooms look almost like grapes.
Took US65N out of Harrison to, yep, you guessed it: Branson, Missouri. I was entertaining the notion for a few minutes of knocking off the ride early today and, perhaps, seeing a show or something. This idea was almost immediately disabused by the traffic.
It was H-O-R-R-I-B-L-E! You couldn’t throw a rock without hitting some little ol’ lady with blue hair in a convertible, or some guy in a huge camper pulling a four-wheel drive SUV. What is it they say in the Bronx? Oh yeah, Fugetaboutit! No way. It took me about nineteen nanoseconds to deduce that Branson, Missouri is just like Disney World and Tijuana: it’s got everything you don’t need. Solution? Yep, I'm outta here!
Determining that an immediate right on SR76E would put me on a road which went out of town in the general direction I wanted to go, I took it. And I’m not unhappy about it at all. Well, except for the twenty-five minutes I had to follow bumper-to-bumper traffic, including a small house, believe it or not, to get out of town. Seems they had the same idea I did, and at the same time.
You can't see it in this picture, but just out of sight around the turn to the left is a house moving down the street at about twenty-five m.p.h.
Took SR76 to US160E and headed west.
There's a lot of this on US160E.
The road is being prepared for resurfacing so it has those nice slits cut into it that bike riders love so much. No problem though, just barrel ahead.
Ninety or so miles later I pull into West Plains, MO.
Tomorrow: further east I think.
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