The car wash attendant let us use his leaf blower to dry off the bikes. Very handy.
Across the street from the carwash was the Hot Springs Harley dealership. I was there right at 9am to see if they would work on fixing my cruise control. Usually dealerships are pretty good about taking care of travelers ahead of locals, but these guys had no interest in working me in. Blair (one of the commuter rail guys with us) gave it a valiant effort but we need to try a few different parts to see what the fix is.
We killed a couple hours there hoping Bret would catch up (he spent the night in Shreveport, LA).
At 11am, we decided we better press on without him and let him catch up later. We were in the driveway waiting to turn out into traffic when Bret showed up! It was truly miraculous timing.
From Hot Springs, we went north on highway 7. Lots of fun turns and pretty scenery. I think this stop was in Russellville:
I introduced Tim to the scratch-n-win cards. I lost about $5 total--I lost track because you usually end up winning your dollar back, which you spend on "just one more ticket" until eventually you lose.
I had the clerk pick my tickets for me. Come on, big money!
Tim used his beginners' luck and won $14.
Continuing north on highway 7, we entered Ozark national forest. This may be the most fun I've ever had on a motorcycle. Turn after turn, blind vertical drops, speeds fluctuating instantly from 15-75mph, all for miles and miles. I took some video on the Gopro that I'll have to post once I get home.
There were so many turns and different possible routes on all these backwoods roads that we got split up for the last hour of the drive today. I ended up with Joe Shaffer and John (a childhood friend of Joe's) in Kingston, AR, which had a cafe, a post office, and antique shop. We went into the antique shop and luckily they sold drinks. Out of an antique fridge. The cokes were fresh though (I checked--never drink an expired diet drink!).
Joe bought a couple really old license plates.
I found the largest collection of jadeite I've ever seen.
I sent Steph Bird this pic and she left her baby with Joe and got in the car to drive straight here. It was priced a lot higher than the DI sells it.
3-D stereo vision! There was a whole box full of cards to look at exotic places of the world in full 3-D.
Downtown Kingston:
Glad I didn't run into this bug at 70mph:
Made it to Branson and checked into the HIE with the rest of the group. We have a nice view of the Branson valley.
Dinner was at the Outback Steak & Oyster Bar--not to be confused with the Outback Steakhouse chain of restaurants.
Doug and I split the one pound sirloin. Very good.
We never had lunch (too busy negotiating turns on Arkansas country roads) and it was 7pm by the time we got our food.
Branson is a really interesting place. Tons of live shows...music, comedy, magic, etc...all family friendly and very affordable. I had my heart set on Yakov Smirnov (No! He's not dead!), but we got to town too late. What a country!
Instead we decided to go to the Eagles tribute band. $28.
Tim is a huge Eagles fan, so he was pretty excited:
They were really good and played for almost two hours!
After the concert, we drove down the main strip to get gas when suddenly my eyes were as wide as dinner plates when I saw this:
That's not a parking garage--it's a go-kart track! The "Wild Woody"! Almost all wood, very slippery, and lots of fun. I wonder if my dad and Tim would do this kind of thing if I weren't here. I think I had a grin on my face like this for the duration of the race:
After the Wild Woody, we did the fast slick track which required a drivers license. The dude let us ride this one twice instead of just once. So fun!
Tim and my dad put another racer into the wall. Video may show up on my blog in a day or two so stay tuned. Here I am talking to my pit crew:
And now it's midnight. We have a very early start tomorrow so with that I conclude another entry in this epic journey.
2 comments:
FABULOUS BLOG!
What an adventure, thanks for letting us live through you!
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