The Long Way Home

Wednesday, July 15, 2015

The Long Way Home - Day 21 - High Water Mark

Tuesday, July 14th

The day started out in Locust Grove, Oklahoma. The plan takes us up to the Kansas-Oklahoma border and then west to Newkirk, Oklahoma.

Oklahoma has open space on a different scale than anything we have ever seen before. I'm sure these photos will not capture it but with the recent rains, the landsape was very green and it seemed to go on forever.

Today we met another father-son team on the TAT. They started from the North Carolina coast and they are headed to Oregon. They were trying to cover a lot of ground today because they have a wedding to be at on Saturday in Denver! Their goal for the day was close to 300 miles. The riding in Oklahoma is faster than other states but we ran into some setbacks today. They are both excellent riders so I'm sure that helped them make up lost time. I hope they were able to meet their goal.

We had the opportunity to ride with them on and off during the day. We eventually lost track of them in the late afternoon. Good luck Steve and Dusty!

We reached an area that has seen an unusually high amount of rain. There were signs warning about the flooding but we had to see for ourselves. Sure enough, the signs were correct! This is the deepest crossing we have ever attempted:

After getting both bikes through that crossing, we ran into this:

The road looked more like a boat ramp and we couldn't even see where it came back out of this lake. This was a good point to trun around. We routed around to the far side and eventually came upon another area of flooding. This bridge looked like a barge parked in the middle of a lake. We decided to try to make the bridge. As Hank pointed out, this is the stuff adventures are made of! (I didn't mention that this is also the stuff disasters are made out of)

Take a look at this tree caught in the bridge. The water was a lot higher. This bridge had to be spanning some sort of river below. The total flood height was significant!

After the bridge, we could see where the flooded road curved through the grass. We didn't see anything too dangerious so we decided to go for it. It all turned out to be a lot of fun.

It was clear we were the first vehicles through here since the flooding. We declared the road officially reopened!

During the day we had stopped on the road for a break and a truck stopped. Matt introduced himself and asked where we were headed. He was very interested in our story and it turns out he has a place in Ridgecrest, California. We do a lot of riding out there and we knew a lot of the places he liked to ride. He told us about this neat trail down to an abandoned bridge. We had to check it out.

A while later, another truck stopped and asked if we were OK. That man turned out to be Matt's father. He didn't know that Matt had also stopped. It's a small world, and the people around here are consistently very friendly.

After al these trun-a-rounds and extra adventures, we were running low on fuel, The closest gas station was a few miles into Kansas so we got to ride through Kansas on the way to our hotel.

The cool car of the day:

John Deere. 'nuff said.

Tommorow we 're continuing our westward trek through Oklahoma. Buffalo is just at the beginning of the Oklahoma pan handle.

Thank you for following us.

Where are they now?

Monday, July 13, 2015

The Long Way Home - Day 20 - Agony of Defeat, Thrill of Victory

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)

Thank you for following us.

Where are they now?

Sunday, July 12, 2015

TLWH - Day 19 - Different Formula

Sunday, July 12

Today we used our new track to get us from Searcy back onto our planned track. Arkansas is beautiful and doing much better economically than Mississippi - at least in the areas we travelled.

The farms were large and well maintained. Clearly, not all farmers are poor.

We met another TAT rider today. Doug has been riding from his home state of Kentucky and will likely end up in Utah. He's riding a 1999 Honda 230 that he has basically built himself. It's refreshing to see a capable mechanic/jury rigger riding a fairly worn out bike and keeping it going on the trail. We got a chance to ride with him occasionally today.

We lost track of him during the day so we were surprised to see him check into our hotel tonight (he has been camping up to this point). He told us that he was following us down one of the gravel roads, as he took a turn too fast and went wide. As he was trying to correct and get back on the road, there was a washed out area. He went over the bars and his bike went over the side. A passing truck and a rope, helped him get his bike back up the hill. He was mostly OK and his bike survived with a broken headlight and bent bars. He's committed to getting back on the trail tomorrow. Great job Doug!

Turtle crossing!

Hank taking his daily shower

We stopped and talked to this couple for a few minutes. They moved from San Diego 25 years ago!

As we have been traveling across the last three states; Tennessee, Mississippi, and now Arkansas, I have been noticing that they have a different formula for life:

More swimmin' holes. Fewer swimming pools

More Churches. Fewer gas stations

More gardens. Fewer grocery stores

More front porches. Fewer back porches.

More fishing. Less work!

I'm not ready to trade places yet but it does get you thinking about balance.

Tomorrow we continue through Arkansas and into Oklahoma. We will be traveling directly down the pan-handle of Oklahoma so it will take us over three days to get across but that will drop us off at the foot of the Rockies!

Thanks for following us!

Where are they now?

TLWY - Day 18 - Crossing the Mississippi River

Saturday, July 11th

We left Water Valley and briefly headed south to pass our furthest point south we would reach in the mid-west. Then we headed northwest across the Mississippi and on to Searcy. We changed our destination from Hazen to Searcy because we were in desperate need of tires. Our bald tires made the gravel roads very challenging but we both got into the fun of sliding through the turns!

Shortly after leaving Water Valley, we ran into these two men fishing. We stopped to see what they were catching. I really couldn't understand what kind of fish they were, but we talked for a bit. Truthfully, I could only understand about 10% of what they were saying. At one point, I mentioned. that they need a boat to get out to where the fish were and one of the guys said "that's what I've been telling you!". That made me laugh but only in my head.

All the fish in their cooler were these little bite size fish but they had a lot of them.

Nearest I can tell, this little guy welcomed us to the furthest point south that we would pass in the mid-west. We helped him accross the road and started towards the Mississippi River

Our gas stop was in Crenshaw, Mississippi. These people have it rough. 90% of the town is shut down and in disrepair. It appears that there is still a fairly large population based on the number of cars stopping in the gas station so they must go somewhere else to get the things they need.

One of the industries around this area is logging. It seems to be on a fairly small scale but one of the things we noticed that once an area was cut, these vines could move in and cover everything like a huge blanket. I can't imagine that's good but it was kind of beautiful.

We finally came to the Mississippi River. We were feeling pretty good about this accomplishment: We made it half way across the country! "Black Water" by the Doobie Brothers was the soundtrack for the bridge crossing!

Riding through the farmlands of Arkansas we came across something we had never seen before: A TAT (Trans America Trail) rest stop. It came at a good time when Hank and I had been riding for almost an hour so we pulled in for a stop. What a great couple of guys. They discovered that their place was on the TAT a few years back and decided to cater to it. I'm not sure what else they do there but basically, they hang out and meet riders on the TAT. One to several groups a week. It was neat looking through their sign-in book.

The car of the day is a '69 Dodge Charger! I'm pretty sure it's a '69 which some of you may recognize as the General Lee. Seemed kind of fitting because I would not have been surprised if the Dukes of Hazard came rolling through some of these back roads of Mississippi

Looks like a match down to the custom wheels!

We were on the gas today trying to make it to Searcy, Arkansas in time to buy some tires. We were getting close and it looked like we were going to make it but we had skipped lunch so this "Fried Pies" stand was a welcome site. This lady was so friendly and her pies were amazing. She didn't want her picture taken, so don't notice her. Fried pies are folded over pie crust with apple or peach filling - so good. We also bought a banana bread for later that never made it out of the parking lot.

We made it to Searcy and Sunrise Honda in time to get our tires. I've never had my bikes serviced at a shop, but it was 100 degrees in the parking lot so it seemed like a great idea to have them do it for us! They were really good to us and cut us a great deal for changing four tires and two oil changes. It's so nice having new tires!

This is Timmy Holland. He was so helpful and so were the techs who did the service... oh and so was the service manager. We highly recommend this shop.

Tomorrow we have designed a custom back roads track to get us from Searcy back onto our planned track. Then we continue our trek west in Arkansas, to Clarksville.

Thanks for following us!

Where are they now?