Day 6

Thursday Oct. 7th, 2004--Russelville, Ark. to the Oklahoma border and on to Eureka Springs, Arkansas

Jay leaves us today and took the pavement to the BMW rally in Potosi--we would see him there. We left Russelville early and made a run for the Oklahoma border. We had come this far--and after a unanimous vote it was decided we would complete our planned ride of 3 states of the Trans-Am Trail--even tho the weather man had a very rainy day predicted for us--we had not had a drop of rain so far.

We rode some really nice mountain scenery, which was mostly gravel roads. If you haven't been to Northwest Arkansas you might be surprised at the beautiful mountains there----and lack of population, making for some nice backroad riding.

The Oark, Arkansas General Store
Established in 1890
This is the oldest store in Arkansas that has been in continuous operation. The floors, walls and ceiling are original.

Pretty neat place---we had a late breakfast here and the waitress refused to make French toast as she just didn't like the French. She was pretty serious--so we said "OK" senorita--habla Espanol ??. The food here is excellent--and even tho it is a very remote and small little town they have gas here also.

This strange looking gentleman is there to greet you as you walk in. Never did figure this one out.

If you came to eat--have a seat !!!

If the Oark store doesn't have it--you don't need it. Again----we had a hoot visiting this store. If you go to Northwest Arkansas, you got to go to Oark.

Guarded vale' parking is provided at no extra charge.

Kevin is diddling with something again as you can see. It was amazing how Kevin rode without falling down while trying to video--and watching his video monitor and his GPS all at once.

We continued on going up and over many mountains as it started to sprinkle on us in ernest. It got a little slick---but the guys behind me agreed that this was some of the best riding of the trip and there was no dust.

Where's the BMW's

I didn't take hardly any pictures today as it was raining pretty hard all day---it quit for just a moment as we took a few pictures just across the Oklahoma border--yes we made it.

These guys were such good riding companions--always ready to ride.

Joe is the little guy on the right--and yes, Larry is still the big guy !! I'm on the left and Kevin is next to me. Congratulations guys on a great ride and time.

 

My GPS tripmeter--1,541 miles--elevation 1,165ft.---Max. speed 79.4 mph----dang, I didn't know my KLR would run that fast :)

I took this last picture from behind and the rain gods let loose again. It was about 3:30PM and we decided to ride as far back East toward Potosi, Mo. as we could before dark.

My riding gear was the only gear that held up to all the rain we rode in. I stayed completely dry---this was the same gear I wore on my trip to Copper Canyon earlier this year---a tried and true system.

We rode till almost dark in the rain and ended up in Eureka Springs, Arkansas. There seemed to be a motel price war going on in town---so we got a nice room pretty cheap. We pulled into one motel and asked if we could put our bikes under the overhang to keep them out of the rain all night---she said no--so we went till we found one that would. Most motels had a sign saying "Biker Friendly".

Hey, I got a tatoo--I guess I'm a real biker !!!
Kevin's got a couple too !!

We pulled a little bike maintenance here. All our bikes had run like a top the whole trip. A tribute to the bikes--and the preparedness of the riders.

 

The weather report was oh so nasty for tomorrow-----we looked on the bright side as always--no dust !!!

Day 7 Can you spell--rain ? On to the Falling Leaf BMW rally in Potosi, Missouri to kick back a little beside the campfire and finally unload those tents and do some camping.

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