Muskogee Oklahoma to Jackson Tennessee
Rt 62 around prospect was very nice. Good mountain roads and not much traffic. I saw my first road kill armidillo. Very high amonia smell. Lots of dead skunks in the road. When I crossed over into Arkansas, I was adjusting my seating and saw a cop getting into his car. He was at a good spot for catching folks heading in the other direction around a curve. In Lincoln, I saw a sheriff coming towards me in his car. A brief snapshot saw a high and tight haircut and a big hairy eyeball as he looked at me. The run up 62 to Beaver was very nice. No cars and another beautiful road. Great looking one lane wooden bridge in Beaver. I took a couple of shots then went across. On the way back across I took several pics of the bridge then went back and continued on. Eureka Springs is an awesome looking town. Nice little place nestled in the hills. I missed my turn while heading south on 14 and made the left on 412 instead heading back up 62. 14 was also quite nice with little traffic and nice curves. I stopped in Lead Hill and spotted three bikes in one end of the lot and another three at the other end. After filling up, I pulled up to the top and briefly talked to one of the riders. He suggested following 14 south and taking 321 north to 5 for "The best road in the country". I thanked him and headed out. It was getting late and clouds were showing signs of colder wetter weather. I was waffling as to whether I'd want to do this and finally went ahead and headed down 14 to see if I could find the road. After a bit, I found the road and headed down it. I have to agree that it was a great road. I saw three other bikers on the road coming towards me during the run. Unfortunately about half way down the road there was some construction and gravel in the turns. I almost went down on one of the particularly nasty ones. At the end I headed down 5 to Mountain View where I encountered a large group of Harley riders. NOrmally I'm riding my Harley on longer trips but this time I'm on the suzuki and I get the whole "cold shoulder" thing from all of them and even looks from other riders sitting across the street at the hamburger stand. Great stuff :) I headed down 9 to 65 S. On 65 I spotted a sign for "Toad Lick Park". I can just imagine what sorts of activites occur there :) Went through little rock. Not much in the way of traffic which was pretty nice. The wind was back from the south and kept it up until I got to TN. I spotted lots of cops including one that flew by me at mach 2 (about 100mph). Once in TN, the trees and whatnot seemed to block most of the wind so the ride was much more bearable. In Hazen at a stop I hung out for a 15 minute break and parked next to an old BMW. I went inside and grabbed a drink and then sat outside on the bench and enjoyed the weather. I chatted with a lady about her and her husband's old bikes. In a few minutes, an older guy with a leather vest, tattoos and scraggly beard came out with his wife. He got on the BMW and backed it off of the center stand. The spring must have been shot since he reached down, grabbed a piece of rope and tied the center stand up. His wife got on the back, they waved and headed out. When I got done with my break, I spotted a local Sheriff pull up with a friend in the passenger seat. They got out and went inside. When they got out, they came over to chat about the bike. He asked how's it going. I said it wasn't too bad and I hope I didn't meet him later :) He said that the bike looked pretty fast and that if I wanted, we wouldn't be meeting at all as he probably couldn't catch me if I didn't want to be caught. Of course I said that I'd never try to outrun a cop. We chatted for a few more minutes about how fast it was and then we left. As I crossed the river to TN and Memphis, I spotted the gigantic black pyramid to the left. Awesome sight. On the road on the other side, I was watching as two cars went by me (second one being a black Lexus). The truck in the left lane, realizing he was camping in the left lane, decided to change lanes back to the right and almost ran the Lexus off the road. A few minutes later I spotted a cop who'd pulled someone over and unfortunately it was the Lexus. I only made it as far as Jackson though and stopped there for the night.