We had just a short one exit hop on I-20 to get over to the beginning of a day of mostly secondary roads up along the north eastern border of Louisiana and then the eastern side of Arkansas. We skirted alongside several lakes that were formed by back-washes of the Mississippi River, and in fact we spent some of the day running on "The Great River Road". At one point while still in LA, we were running up alongside a large cornfield on the right and some woods on the left. It was Bill's tun to lead so he had the thrill to come around a bend and spot a fairly large black bear sitting smack in the center of the road. The bear saw Bill at the same time and he jumped up and then took a quick look before sprinting off into the corn field.
The day was mostly overcast, which was nice because it kept the temps from rising too fast and didn't require sunglasses which was a nice change. There was no threat of rain until after 2:00 PM.
By 7:00 AM we were crossing the border into Arkansas. We needed to get a photo of the Louisiana State border sign so rather than wait until the other side of the state we swung around and got it here.
Twenty five miles further north we stopped for a coffee break at Lake Village AR. The rest of the morning was fairly un-eventful save for the pair of little black puppies wandering across the road. Bill managed to avoid them, but they were so small and so far from any homes we really were concerned for their well being, but being on the bikes there really wasn't much we could do about them. I hope somebody didn't just dump them there and maybe someone in a car would come along and pick them up.
The 155 miles from Lake Village up through to Forrest City were pretty mundane but pleasant secondary roads meandering through farm country. Lots of corn, soybeans and we thing we saw some peppers as well. Lot's of irrigation keeping all that agriculture going but no worries about the supply - the rivers we saw were full up and in some places even over the banks.
We gassed up again in Forrest City and then we came into some really sweet motorcycle roads between there and Wynne, AR. Really nice twisting, undulating road was Hwy 284 along the western border of the Village Creek State Park. It was only 16 miles but it really made our day and was the best riding since we started this trip.
We finally got up to Jonesboro AR and stopped at a Cracker Barrel for lunch. We had been wanting to break the fast food habit of the past few days, but being it was a Sunday most of the few diners along the way had been closed. We got into the Cracker Barrel at right about noon local time and the place was PACKED full of the after church crowd. We felt a bit under-dressed in the company but nobody seemed to mind. We had a nice lunch and were back at it in no time. It wasn't too long and we were rolling into Black Rock AR - which was our primary target for today's ride. We found the post office easier than most to date and got the following photo.
From there we were on the home stretch. Rain was beginning to become a real possibility but the GPS said we had only an hour to go to the hotel so we put the spurs to it and headed out. We did come across another stretch of sweet riding roads, though we also did get some sprinkles that wet the road enough to make us reign in our enthusiasm just a bit. We never did have to break out the rain gear and we rolled into the hotel parking lot in Batesville AR at just a few minutes before 4:00 PM local time.
From there we had the chance to do laundry, go for a swim in the pool, get dinner, get a headlight for Larry's bike, spend an hour putting the headlight into Larry's bike, download the photos and tracks, and as I write this blog entry at 9:35 local time Larry is already sawing Z's :-)
Total miles for the day 380.
