Day 2
Friday June 10th, 2011
Benton, AR

Up at six.
Breakfast.
Load up riding gear.
Group prayer.
“Hit the road!”
Ha, finally!
We were in Heaven!
The road to Hot Springs gave us a taste of what was to come. Less than five minutes out of the hotel, we encountered a tree-lined and totally shaded road which wound down and around with curves that our dreams had been made of. All too soon we broke out from under the canopy of trees and pulled into the gas station that seemed to be waiting to greet us!
Quickly fuelling up, we began our journey westward towards the Town of Hot Springs, Arkansas along Highway 5. Although a narrow two-lane road, it thrilled us with its charm of curves and shade. Fourteen miles and ten minutes later we arrived in Hot Springs.
Quaint little town with a very curious charm to its ambience. We committed to coming back later to visit at a more leisurely pace. Right now, we wanted to ride the fabled Arkansas roads!
Turning around, we headed back along the same route and swung north onto Highway 7 about five miles along. Hanging a left at the first junction we came to, we began OUR RIDE!
Tar-snakes, jagged road edges, no shoulder, nothing but loose gravel on the sides and nothing much to see ahead of us Tony pulled over after about five minutes of riding. I read the disappointment in his face just as I know he read the same in William’s and mine!
It couldn’t be. Is this what we had come all this way to experience? “Man, I know many roads better than this in Africa” I thought to myself. It can’t be! Was this the ultimate tourist hype/con? All those magazine articles, web sites and photos we had drooled over? Couldn’t be. Something was really wrong here. “Something was wrong this picture”.
Looking ahead along the road, it did not look to be any different from where we were at the moment.
Ok. So what to do next? For several minutes we pondered.
Nah! Not possible!
“C’mon guys, let’s go back to the junction and regroup”. Tony turned us around.
Arriving back at the junction, we turned north back onto Highway 7. We followed the road through a small town we came to. We encountered some traffic congestion due to some on-going roadwork/repair. Yeah, they needed to repair the road we had just experienced. Not knowing what to expect anymore, we seemed to have transformed into explorers. Not quite what we had anticipated.
Worming our way past the road repair crews and their equipment, we were suddenly rewarded with beautiful blacktop as far as our eyes could see!

Whoah!

Now this was more like it!

We cranked up the r.p.m.’s and began our gradual ascent into the mountains, with the road ahead of us disappearing into the vanishing point of our line of sight.

The roads curved, we banked.
The roads ascended, we climbed.
The road led the way, we followed!

The woods were lovely, dark and deep
And our bikes had promises to keep
And miles to go before they would let us sleep.

And for the rest of the day this pattern repeated itself over and over and over again.
We banked, we ascended.
We sped up, we slowed down. All this taking place under the canopy of the forest trees. The sunlight occasionally filtered through the thick canopy of the trees and created such a stunning visual display of color contrast and a natural stroboscopic effect that was so pleasing to my senses.
Shade, shade, sunlight, shade, bank, roll, bank, climb, bank, roll, sunlight, shade, shade shade …………. On and on we went. On and on this pattern repeated itself.
The roads curved, the turns were many, the switchbacks came at us. We were in a groove.
Without intent, I began to scrape pegs on the road. I was now pushing the bike to it’s lean-angle limits.
Yes! This was the stuff of my dreams!
My thoughts wandered back to the early weekday morning rides in West Africa during the early 2000’s when I would take my youngest daughter to school on my Honda VT750C Shadow, scraping pegs around the 5th Circular Road Circle.
I was living vicariously again in my own thoughts.
It’s a wonderful motorcyclists dream/feeling when the ride is so smooth and one can operate the bike almost subconsciously.
Almost as second nature.
But now after this brief moment of a break in my concentration, I re-focused my attention back to the ride currently underway.
As we crested the first mountain, the view was spectacular! As much as we wanted to take in the views, we had to forcibly keep our eyes and concentration on the road under and ahead of us.
Our curiosity made us turn off the road at first chance, taking us to a sulphur-smelling river at the base of the Nimrod Flood Barrier Dam.
It was a pretty location.
We visited with some locals who were fishing and chatted a while.
Very friendly.

Needless to mention, the dam itself was very impressive ……………..
It could easily pass as a set for use on a James Bond movie.

Leaving the dam after a rest, re-hydration and taking in the views, we came upon another breathtaking vista at the entrance to the Petit Jean State Park just up the road. It was so beautiful up here. The view, again, needless to say was spectacular. More so than the visit to the dam.
We really felt on top of our world now and we literally were!

He appeared out of nowhere and ordered us to re-park our bikes in a safer location away from the edge. Too close for comfort! (I think safety would be a better choice of words).
This was such a beautiful location, high above the treetops, overlooking the valley below as far as the eye could see!
Pushing on, we arrived at YET ANOTHER beautiful vista barely a few minutes further along the road ……………
The Cedar Falls Overlook was also truly spectacular. The cascade of water seemed to fall forever before reaching the plunge-pool. The photo I took from this perspective really did not capture the essence of my experience. But take my word for it; it was a lovely sight to behold. Nature in its amazing glory!
As beautiful as everything looked at each vista, each successive one thrilled and “wowed” us even more . Seemed like they were getting lovelier and lovelier as we went along. (That’s relative of course.)
An elderly couple from Ohio drove up. We chatted a while. They were kind enough to take a picture of William, Tony and I and in return I took one of them together.
They told us of the beauty of the Petit Jean’s “final resting” place ahead and it’s overlook just ahead of us. They had been coming here every year. This was their sixteenth year of visit in a row. We would find out why very soon! Their words to us were: “If you young men like this place, wait till you see what awaits you ahead!”
This supported our already growing excitement from the experiences of the past few miles.
Just when I thought I had seen the prettiest sight, the next one and the next, wowed me even more!
What a feeling!
Legend has it that the spirit of Petit Jean hovers over this mountain, giving it an air of strange enchantment. (If you are interested in reading about the legend/history associated with this place, follow this link by pasting it into your web browser: http://www.petitjeanstatepark.com/history/history_of_petit_jean_mountain.aspx)
I was a big boy on a big bike, seeing big things dreaming big dreams and visiting big places as I had dreamed of so long ago as a little boy!
I was living my dream!
…… and no matter how big we think we are, nature has an uncanny way of always reminding us of how small we truly are!
So with that, we mounted up and pushed on.
The next turn-off we came to, led us off the main road and onto a relatively narrow road, yes, tree and shrub-lined for close to a couple of hundred yards.
Then it opened up into some sort of a cul-de-sac. At this point all we could see was sky! As we approached the parking area, we were so overwhelmed by what we encountered.
At almost the top of his voice Tony, already having dismounted from his bike was yelling out to William and I as he began videotaping.
“Hey, come here, you’ve gotta see this!
Grab your camera Ernest!
WOW!
C’mon William!
True to all the stories and history I have come to read about Petit Jean, this was truly the most beautiful location they had chosen to lay her to rest. It did not disappoint. I stood right above her grave and the view was awesome! It was quiet – peaceful, almost eerie, with unsurpassed natural beauty. It was a clear day and we could see for miles! We were high up and we had a natural high! At this moment in time and space, we felt like we were on top of and at the edge of the world! We were enchanted!
At this point, I shall allow some of my pictures in the photo albums to help tell this part of the story!!
We stayed up in the mountains as long as we could, which was still too short a time for us. By now it was 2:13p.m.. We had been “on the road” since about 7:00a.m.. Reluctantly we had to begin making our way back to Benton. For safety reasons it was imperative that we “got off the mountain” before dark.
Turning the iron horses in the direction of return we relished the ride back down to the valley.
Curve, bank, shade, shade, sunlight, shade, bank, slow, press, roll, bank, straighten out, bank, straighten out, bank again, again and again.
Shade, sunlight, shade, shade, bank, roll, level out ……………….. oh boy! They (these ride/road conditions just kept coming at us. I was enjoying every moment of this.)
The torque delivery from my Big Red Bike was silky smooth. She pulled out of each curve and bank effortlessly with power to spare. It is such a comfortable and relaxing machine to ride.
The low r.p.m.’s of the vee-four engine, the ergonomics of the full fairing, seating position to match and full fairing gave great wind protection. Again, without realizing it, I was carving the mountain and flowing through the twisties at a pace averaging twenty-five miles per hour faster than the posted speed limits With Tony and William in-tow). I know why this 1995 year model machine has earned the title “KING OF THE TOURERS”! and still to this day continues to hold that same title in its reincarnation as the ST1300. (Sorry, all you other non-ST riders, read the reviews, you’ll see I’m not exaggerating! Ride one and you’ll see and feel exactly what I mean.)
All day we had ridden under a canopy of trees with very little sunshine beating down on us.
It was now just before 6:00p.m.. We pulled up at the same station we had fueled up at in the morning. As we fueled up in preparation for the next days’ ride, our attention was drawn to a gentleman also at the gas station who was waiting to fuel up his motorbike as well. A Kawasaki Concours 1400 – silver in color. It’s the kind of bike you notice wherever you see one. Kinda like my Big Red Honda! Ha ha.
(Did I mention that my buddy Tony also owns one? Yeah of course, it’s the one he rode on to West Texas on our trip in April this year.)
Anyway, we struck up conversation (courtesy of our Concours Technocrat, Tony) and ended up introducing ourselves to Henry Wilks. After a brief few minutes we parted and went our ways.
Feeling the pangs of hunger now, we proceeded to find some dinner.
Returning to the hotel and as luck/fate would have it; we coincidentally passed by Henry coming out of a shopping center next door to our hotel.
Well, to cut a long story short, he followed us to the hotel and spent more time chatting with us.
With a new friendship in the making we all agreed that nothing would please us more if we could all ride together the next day. Henry, being an Arkansas native, offered to show us around and take us on a ride of our lifetime through “his neck of the woods”.
“Well, it’s agreed then, let’s meet here at say 7:00a.m..
How’s that?”
“Great!
We’d love that.
Very kind of you.
See you at seven then.
Goodnight”.
Needless to mention, we went to bed that evening after re-living the day’s experiences over and over and over again!

Next - AR 1 Day 3. New Friendships.