After battling with Yahoo Photos for most of the morning I am still not able to upload additional photos of my trip.......oh well.
I made it home Monday (June 4th) afternoon, riding in from Pryor, OK in about seven hours. Got a late start Monday morning due to illness. I won't go into detail but suffice to say Imodium is my new best friend.
Backing up to last Friday when I left Georgia..........great ride to Birmingham where I visited the Barber Motorsports Museum. Had I felt better (sick Wed and Thur, same problem as above) it would have been much more enjoyable. What a place though! There were Motorcycles in there that I had never heard of and all in pristine condition. They looked like they would have started first kick and you could have ridden them around the track that was right beside the museum.
A Navy Harley?
They must have been having some kind of track day as there were several bikes making there way around the track at greatly varying rates of speed.
After fighting my way through Birmingham I got to Amory, MS and spent the night. I was only a few miles from the 2nd goal of the ride home to ride on the Natchez Trace Parkway. I jumped on just South of Tupelo for a short but enjoyable 35 miles ride down to pick up Hwy 82 to continue across Mississippi.
The Dub on the Natchez Trace
I could see the clouds building in the West as I rode Northerly toward Pine Bluff. My jeans got soaked and dried out once going through the aftermath of a heavy rain South of Pine Bluff so I was not hesitant to don the Frog Togs as I turned West into the blacking sky. Sure enough a couple of miles up the road and it was rain off and on all the way across Arkansas. As I approached Hot Springs it was apparent that I had made the right decision in canceling my visit with Robert in Benton, AR. Arkansas is a great bike riding State so hopefully I'll get to see Robert the next time down there.
The rain finally quit and the sky's cleared the closer I got to Mena, AR, my planned stop for the night. Mena was just finishing up their annual Lum and Abner festival so the town was full of hot rods and bikes from the show they had. My motel room was next door to an ole boy in a '67 Olds that had won the People's Choice award. We sat in front of our rooms and talked cars and bikes for a couple of hours.
The ribs I had for supper that evening were first rate but they were laying pretty heavy in my tummy Sunday morning as I made my way up the mountain to goal #3, the Talimena scenic drive out of Arkansas and into Oklahoma. I stopped at the Queen Wilamena lodge for breakfast and enjoy the scenic view. I must say the AR side of the trail was far superior to OK in that the road was better kept, the roadside underbrush as cut back and the scenic pull outs were maintained better. Sure would like to come back in the Fall.
At the Queen Wilimena lodge on the Talimena Parkway
Made it to Red Oak for the Eaves Family Reunion and had a nice visit with the relatives. Continued North out of Red Oak for more spectacular vistas over the short but impressive Sans Bois mountains. This is the area my mother was born and raised and where my grandfather ranched but it sure looked different than when I used to travel the dirt roads with them as a kid.
On to Pryor, OK and back to being sick..........
Good to be home, I think I got dehydrated and am still feeling a bit under the weather but already thinking about taking the REB to Minnesota for a Royal Enfield rally the end of the month.
Dubya performance: Ran like a top, no problems. Only problem was my two arse on an all day bike.
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