Monday, July 13th.
Today we started out in Clarksville, Arkansas. We headed west continuing our journey through the Ozark Mountains and eventually entering Oklahoma. Our destination was Locust Grove, Oklahoma
The roads quickly turned into fun, country roads.
At one point early in the morning, we couldn't find the correct road. We passed it several times until we noticed a clearing in the trees about 30 yards from the road we were on. It was the remnants of the road we were looking for! No need to think, just gas it and head down the embankment, Sure 'nuff there used to be a road here. We had fun following this for about two miles.
Unfortunately, this good thing came to an end. We walked through the forest looking for remnants of the old road but eventually, had to head back up. The agony of defeat
Lunch time brought us to this fun place. It's a popular spot for the locals as well as road motorcyclists and TAT riders. Hwy 215 is Arkansas's "Tail of the Dragon". We came in on a dirt road so we did not partake of Hwy 215.
After lunch, there were more small towns and roads. We routinely motor right around the road closed signs thinking that they are likely just suggestions. There were several of these today, but one had a note from a previous TAT rider saying that it was impassable. Well now, that sounded like a challenge! We found this:
A huge section of the mountain had been saturated into a thick mud and slid down to fill this area. We could only walk through it by standing on the rocks. Hank rolled his bike into the edge of it and it immediately sunk and stuck.
So if we were not going through it, could we go over it?
We were able to make it up and over the slide. It was 100 degrees so we stopped for a minute to cool off in the stream
We noticed that we had to ride through some poison ivy so we may be complaining about this tomorrow but who cares, we passed the impassable slide. The thrill of Victory!
Around five in the afternoon, we crossed into Oklahoma.
We've noticed a few of these shelters in Arkansas, but there are more here in Oklahoma
In one section of a remote dirt road, there were dozens of these uprooted trees like this one:
Let's think about this: Oklahoma, storm shelters, uprooted trees. If you're thinking what I am, you're thinking Tornado! This California boy could be wrong about this, but that's my guess.
The cool trucks of the day:
I was just taking a picture of a beautiful farm but what I didn't realize was that I was just about to witness the birth of a Hay Rollup! That green trailer being towed just opened up and a Hay Rollup rolled out the back. Magic!
Tomorrow we continue west with a 190-mile day ending in Newkirk, Oklahoma (shown in green on the map)
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