So with the cooler temps (46f this morning) and rain moving in at 8am, I threw in the towel on riding today. Cold, wet and slippery trails….pass. We loaded up. Job well done Super Enduro, appreciate you more and more big little buddy.
I ran into town for a real breakfast. Found this cafe in the downtown Mena area, Skyline Cafe. It worked. Normal breakfast and good ice tea. No crappy sausage biscuits this morning.
Rolled out of town and had to stop and check out this old truck. It was calling to me. I love it.
Owner of the automotive shop as well as this truck came out to talk to me, in the rain. He was excited that I was excited! He got it recently, it moves under its own power and the PTO winch still works. He is going to make a few improvements but mostly keep it in its 1957 1 ton time capsule. I made him pose with it. We both laughed about his T shirt, classic Arkansas!!!
Moving on. But I still wanted to poke around a little more before I left this general area. Thought about Little Missouri Falls but I’ve already been there and it was raining pretty hard, pass. I routed south with Shady Lake as a target. Took a while on these slick curvy wet paved roads.
And then hit the slushy wet dirt roads.
It was still kind of fun driving roads I would normally do on the Super Enduro. But I was warm and dry.
Little waterfalls were presenting themselves. I got out of the truck for this one.
About a hour later, finally made it to Shady Lake. My imagination was better. But if you were traveling and running out of light, it would work well. Coming from the south, it’s pavement access. If you left to the north, immediately on dirt. Again, not a bad way to access this area and bed down for the night off your bike. Or out of your camper for that matter. I’m not sure if the camp sites were marked with letters or not, the spot I liked had a S on the lantern post.
Meandered my way south about another hour with a target of another campground I had been wondering about, Blue Ridge. This was out of the way a little more, several miles one way into this complex, all paved. Had a view at first but went away quickly even though you knew you were driving on a ridge. Once at the campground, this appeared to be a bigger lake.
I also explored a road to the south in the complex and I liked those campsites better….spot 22 if anyone cares.
Still headed south and in Arkansas, was wanting a break from the truck. I was pretty stiff from throwing the Super Enduro around, or him throwing me. I’m not much on graveyards, but this was a nice spot on a hill overlooking the rural landscape. This lackadaisical traveling without a care where I go or a strict timetable to get there felt weird. Is this how retirement feels? I could get use to the freedom compared to what I normally have to do.
My phone was trying to route me to I-30. Nope, not having it, shut your mouth Siri. I bailed off on to a farm to market road and she recalculated. All was well for several miles, then all of a sudden on a straight road it turned to crap. Out loud I said what the….then Siri announced over my speakers “Welcome to Oklahoma.” I laughed out loud, touché you old hag.
Didn’t last long and I was back in Texas. Phone still trying to re-route me and a state highway had a detour I didn’t like. I don’t work for you, I bailed off onto county roads for a while.
Eventually landed in Mt. Pleasant for the night. Had time to meander around town. Mostly a cool feel to the town. I really liked this mural.
Grabbed some crappy Mexican food and meandered to the KOA campground outside of town. I got accustom to staying at these places in camping cabins when traveling with my little family in Texas, NM and Colorado. The kids could have fun on the playgrounds, the bathrooms are always clean and the wife and I could relax outside and throw something on the grill. And you don’t have to worry about your truck/trailer/toys growing legs at a motel.
And that is that, the next day was just a shorter day in the truck traveling my normal route through this part of the world back home, not getting on I-35. After trip thoughts, I probably should have just taken the 450 for this trip but I originally thought I was going to get to be more nomadic and not base camp. I held onto that plan a little too long but the Super Enduro stepped up and got it done. It worked out, I won’t forget the time I took a big desert machine into the wet piney woods for a romp fest. Till next time.