Day 9 – Hot Springs, AR

I sure am glad we made the extra push to stay the night in Hot Springs, Arkansas, this place is the coolest town we’ve been through yet. (this will be a theme from here on out, throw my plans based on the squiggliest roads on the map and distance out the window and listen to the locals as we go) Hot Springs sorta has the feel of Durango and other old Colorado towns, lots of old fancy historic stone hotels and bathhouses were everywhere and the main streets anyway had nice landscaping and were well manicured. It also felt a few degrees cooler with the shaded valleys and trees, I dont know how high up we were.

Of all the places we’ve been so far this place had by far the most number of bikes on the road, mostly cruisers but a fair number of dual sports and a few sport bikes here and there. Throughout our trip I was surprised to see so few motorcycles on the road, back in New Mexico I can be out riding nearly anywhere any day of the week and run into quite a few of them. Even as we left down the most secluded backroads 40 or 50 miles from the nearest town in the middle of the week we saw more motorcycles than cars. From the number of CC&D forum members from Texas I would have assumed we’d see just as many there but most days we were lucky to see one or two all day other than the ones I knew.

As we ate breakfast I was excited to spot a pair of MGs and then a while later another group of them. Sweet! I’d never seen an MG rally or show before, it was something to see that many of them touring the town. All throughout the day we kept meeting stragglers heading down the road the other direction. One of these days after I get a good start on my motorcycle collection I want to pick up a MGA.

We cruised up and down the streets checking out the architecture and cool buildings for about an hour and unfortunately had to keep moving. Next time we plan one of these trips I’m adding a few more slop days where we can stop for a day and rest and have time to check out the neat places we find. Originally I’d wanted to take off work from a monday to a friday so we’d have 4 extra days with the weekends on the ends, but with the birthday on the 12’th I couldnt see how to do it without spending 6 days in Texas, uh no thanks, and then having to rush through the rest of it. Next time I dont want any must make appointments in the middle of the trip so we have more flexibility to enjoy the unexpected gems we find like Hot Springs, Arkansas. We need to come back and check it out further, it looks like theres plenty of state park campgrounds for a cheap stay.

We headed up 270 through the Ouachita Mountains. This road was nearly perfect, good scenery, mountain sweepers, ups and downs and a few twisties thrown in with fairly decent pavement on most of it, however, the thing was jam packed with heavy truck traffic. It was frustrating, this amazing road all the scenery and all you can do is concentrate on the big steel box right ahead of you blocking your view and the car 2 feet off your rear wheel. There was huge amounts of traffic and this was just a two lane road so even on the straights you couldnt pass with all the cars going the other way. What a nightmare. It took 30 miles for the traffic to thin out enough that I could fight my way to the front, and from there wow what a killer road. Except for the stretches where it smelled like they were harvesting Valerian root and you have to fight the gag reflex in your helmet, yuck.

Despite the slow start to the morning we made good time to Fort Smith for lunch and the lowest price for gas so far, $2.12 a gallon. Woohoo! I had budgeted for fuel using New Mexico prices and so far its gone down the further we went and I’m way under my estimates. We ate at a truck stop at what appeared to be just a small convienience store but inside they had a buffet and a full menu of stuff that was cooked however you wanted in the back, Nice.

As we ate a few guys that had asked where we were from sat outside smoking and looking over the bike. The waitress went outside to check it out too and I guess they were explaining various stuff to her, pointing here and there and doing hand gestures to show how stuff worked to impress her, I found it all highly amusing to watch. One guy came in to ask me what kind of bike it was and went right back outside to tell the waitress so he’d sound all smart, hehehe too funny.

As we left there was a few drops on the sidewalk and I did the universal palm up and look at the sky is it going to rain motion to which the guys outside said “oh dont worry it ain’t gonna rain t’day.”  So of course as soon as we got barely a mile down the road it was raining so hard that between that and the spray of the loads of rush hour traffic you could barely see 60 feet.

The rain didnt last too long and the Muskogee Turnpike just had light traffic and was mostly dry with spots of light rain only a few miles at a time, which helped wash off all the muck from the interstate some. I dont understand Toll roads, having to pay to go down a road? WTF? that would never fly back west, we prefer invisible taxes and higher gas prices. Also why does it cost me the same price as a car if I’m on a motorcycle?

We quickly made it to Tulsa and I got my first taste of how screwed up Okie roads are. From my sisters directions I was suposed to take 244 to Joplin and exit on Mingo, from my map it looked like the turnpike we were on turned into 244, simple right? Watching the signs, the road turned into 412 then 44, then 66, then 412 then 244… What the hell? I followed the signs for 244 wherever I saw them among the alphabet soup of chaos and the numbers 75 and 64 joined the mix too. I dont know about you but having 4 or 5 names for the same stretch of road is a bit insane and a tad confusing, just pick one and go with it. There were stretches where I had 4 lanes to choose from and each lane had a different number painted on it.

We made it all the way to the end of 244 and still had not seen our exit. I had to pull over into a motel parkinglot and break out the heavy artillary and fire up Microsoft Streets and Trips to find this sucker. According to the computer we’d past it nearly at the beginning, how did that happen? I had Cece be on extra vigilent watch for the exit and we headed back through highway numbering madness. This time I had no trouble finding it and was relieved to see another “Yeller license plate” for the first time in a week. Later Tiff says, “Oh yeah, well there isn’t an exit going the other direction”. What the heck? What moron designed this place? They must try to make it intentionally as confusing as possible so not too many Okies can find their way out.

Tiff’s park was interesting. They had a nice laundry room and showers but everything had a real mix of styling. In the bath rooms they had New Mexican theme going with Zia and kokopelli tiles. In other parts they had Arizonan Indian stuff, and a totem poke outside with North West styling, throw a bit of plains Indians stuff into the mix and whoa what happened here? It was as though they found everything Native American they could find and threw it into a blender without care that none of this goes together heh.

They really had the trailers packed in there like sardines. The old areal views framed by the showers showed they used to be spaced as far apart as my park back in the day. I guess the owners decided to squeeze as much revenue out of the land as possible. Its pretty scarry with all the rigs just a few feet apart, but with it so dang hot all the time I guess you wouldnt want to spend much time outside anyway.

All the swelling has gone down on Cece’s bite by now and its healing well, I dont think we’ll need the bandages on there anymore.