3. Camping Out At Motel Three

We spent the night in Texarkana at a Motel 6. The trend is set for the rest of the ride. It’s okay, though, as this is a “visiting” trip and a sight seeing excursion only in the larger sense.

Even with the delay caused by the broken valve stem and the hunt for a new one we hadn’t burned up too much daylight, so we pushed on into Arkansas. Our first planned stop is to meet my Internet friend, Julie, in Hot Springs National Park. I’d had many pleasant exchanges with her on the Net and was looking forward to a face-to-face meeting. I was certainly not disappointed. We had a good coffee break with her but soon it was time to get in the wind on highway 7.

The ride up SH 7 was fabulous, a great road with little traffic and awesome scenery.
After a full and rewarding day we decide to stop in Russellville. The town bustles. Our eyes are cast about for a motel near the highway, not a compound, but one with a clear view of the motorcycles. Bikes parked “first floor, at the end” and just outside the window would be most desirable.
AT the Economy Inn we are met by the smiling face of Rashid. Rashid speaks English pretty well and tells us that motorcyclists get the corporate discount at his place, which is not, he informs us, part of a chain. It seems that bikers are quiet and don’t tear up the rooms. Who’d a-thunk it? We’re the good ones!

Supper is excellent at the Dixie Restaurant where Jill resists the urge to flirt with the handsome waiter. I find resisting urges counter productive to a good time and have the paper to prove it, but she’s a little more reserved than I. After, we relax and ready ourselves for another day in the saddle.

Continuing up winding SH 7, it takes us three hours to make the 85 miles to Harrison where we head west to ride along the Boston Mountains. At a roadside park, we learned that the Ozark “mountains” are fairly uniform in height. Originally a plateau that has been eroded by the rivers, we were actually riding the Ozark valleys.

I also learned that controlled logging of the forest keeps it healthy, makes forest fires less likely and promotes the re-introduction of plants native to the area. That was welcome information, as I had seen many logging trucks and recalled old photos of the Appalachians, denuded by clear-cutting of timber.

In the foothills, we ate at “Joy’s” in the small town of Imboden, where the waitress is from the big city of Dallas. The owner said, he too, is a Texan, from Plano. Judging from his ‘twang’ I suspect he may have been from somewhere in the Middle East, before that, though.

Soon after, we stopped for gasoline and Gatorade in tiny McDougal where rice, sorghum, hay and soybeans fuel the local economy. The attendant and I chat and find commonality in our fondness for Stone Mountain, Georgia.

The land flattens out in the plains of the Mississippi River. Cotton fields, defoliated and ready to harvest, look like they’d been dusted with snow that refuses to melt in 87° heat.
We stop to check our route in Gideon, Missouri. Having ridden her own motorcycle over so many miles, Jill is a hit with the ladies who work the store.

Now, a trip just ain’t a trip without, at least, one wrong turn and at least one happened when we left Gideon. While photographing an isolated stretch of blacktop I noticed a “dead end” sign were one should not be, that is, miles down the road we had just ridden.

The road looked fairly new and newly striped, as well, and we knew we wouldn’t sleep that night if we didn’t follow it to its end.

…………………………………..

And end it did, abruptly, at the river.

One needs read the map, closely (at a glance, the road appears to cross the river, here).

Detoured and back on track, we rolled into Dyersburg, Tennessee after dark, looking for a night’s lodging. The clerk at a franchise motel seemed to think that having a pimp’s car parked in the lot entitled them to screw honest travelers, but we weren’t having it.
They weren’t the only game in town, just the only one with vacant rooms so, full of the spirit of adventure, we headed for the closest next town, South Fulton, near the state line.

The motel in South Fulton is owned by… Rashid!

This is the other Rashid’s worthless brother and quite a hand at giving red dot hoteliers a black eye.
But, the rates were low and we were given a discount for paying with cash. I want to use the term, “rat hole money”, but won’t.

Every electric plug in the room ended at a single extension cord. It looked like one of those ads that warn you against plugging all your Christmas lights into one outlet. One of those cords served a television, though, and we could see that the good folks at the Weather Channel had arranged more great days for us to motorcycle in. Though shabby, the place was clean and the bed comfortable and I slept the sleep of the innocent.

More to follow on the next page.