Sunday, July 29, 2012

2009 - The Helix to Arkansas - Part 3

The Helix outside my motel room, anxious for another day of Arkansas adventure.



Video of a section of Hwy 123, a dandy road and a favorite of every other rider!

Lauren and I headed up on the ridge at Brannon Mountain to cool off, discovered this cemetery.


'not sure I've ever seen so many flowers around the headstones.....


Highway 215 on our way to Oark for lunch....


Lunch at the Oark General Store/Cafe, oldest continually running store in AR.


Another ride, this one north on MO 76....


Stopped to visit at Motorcycle Supply, Gateway, AR


Another cooling off swim at Beaver Lake, water wonderful!


Palace Hotel and Bathhouse.......


Carnegie Library, I visit them every time that I can......


Pine and Spring Street......


Crescent Hotel......


The Entrance out front, originally the rear of the building.....


In the hotel.....


Lobby fireplace....


Downtown again, spending a quiet afternoon in the shade.....


Lunch at the Basin Park Hotel Cafe....


John and I spent the afternoon discussing, life, Arkansas, retirement and most everything else.  I finally got to the point that his heart-shaped glasses w/peace sign charms stopped distracting me while we shot the breeze.


John, April the Magnificent monkey and Corey performing in the bandshell.......


Tattoos for sale in the park.....


I spent the extra time in the park due to my last minute discovery that the Helix had almost completely blown through a rear tire and it took a couple of extra days to get the tire in and replaced.  Once that happened, I beat it for home, via I-35.  Leaving late one afternoon, I went as far as Kansas City, then home the next day from there.  As mentioned before, ~2500 miles for the long week, 500 of them 2-up with daughter Lauren.

The Minnesota Visitor Center south of Albert Lea.......






3 comments:

  1. I love Arkansas, I've been down there 3 times. Twice to Eureka Springs, and once to Marble Falls. This last trip we has great weather. The other 2 times it rained almost the entire time we were there.
    Thanks for posting and ringing back memories!

    Erik.

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  2. As mentioned earlier, it was the first time I really spent time exploring, previous trips had us racing through on our way to somewhere else. It was good riding, but I might prefer the denser coverage of roads in that state to the north, MO.

    Re: your trip west, will you do Oregon again? Looks like you all had a great time out there. Long weekends limit me to the Midwest these days, but I've had some grand, longer trips too. Welcome home!

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    Replies
    1. I probably won't make it back this year, but I'd really like to go back to the west coast again.

      It was really neat to meet the faces behind the blogs. A great group of people, with a common interest in motorcycles.

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