Back tonight from another motorcycle trip although this one wasn’t quite as much fun as the one earlier in the week. We left early yesterday morning with 9 other bikes – most of them members of Burl’s Shrine unit – and headed again for Mena, AR although this time we took a different route than we’d taken a few days ago. The scenery was again excellent but when this many people try to travel together, we end up stopping much more frequently and each stop takes a LLLLLLLLLLOOOOOOOOOONNNNNNNNNNNGGGGGGGG time!
In fact, it took over 10 hours to go 325 miles which included a stop for breakfast, one for lunch and 4 other stops for gas, etc. I was exhausted when we finally reached the lodge at Queen Wilhelmina State Park and got settled in for the night. It was refreshing to get to our room, open a bottle of Bud Light Lime and sit back and watch the MU Tigers kick some Cornhusker butt!
The plan today was to ride the Talimena Trail which follows the mountain ridge from Mena, AR to Talihina, OK but we awoke to a low cloud cover so thick we could barely see our bike in the parking lot. The clouds were still hovering when we left at 9 so we changed the route and instead headed home going west a few miles to OK and then turning north. For a while we were split into 2 groups and I had hopes that we’d make good time but unfortunately we all ended up at a filling station at the same time and decided to stop together at Siloam Springs, AR for lunch – but a wrong turn took us about 20 miles out of our way. GRRRRR!
Finally – lunch was over and the 4 bikes (including us) that wanted to get on home took off and we pulled into the drive around 4:15 – so stiff from riding that we could barely get off the bike. But we were home safely and that’s what mattered.
The trip was proof that while it’s fun to do a weekend ride with a group in theory, the reality is that it’s a lot more fun for just the 2 of us to get away and make our own decisions about when to leave, where to stop and any diversions we may want to explore. We also make better time and don’t end up having to listen to Harley motors banging in our eardrums!
Good news on the trip – Burl won high in the poker run and we netted a profit of $27.50 and I re-read one of my favorite books from the Top 100 List published by Time Magazine – Catcher In the Rye by J.D. Salinger. Bad news on the trip - Burl lost his cell phone (more importantly, he lost his SIM card) and the bearings appear to be going out on the motorcycle trailer.
No more overnight trips in the near future and I think I’m ready to stay home and relax in my own backyard.
