Day 7

Day 7 – Written on June 3, posted June 4

Today was a good day. As promised, it started with a ride on the ferry across the Mississippi (see map pushpin) which is the only crossing between Kentucky and Missouri. Every time I cross the Mississippi south of Minneapolis, I am struck by the same observation...on the east side of the river the country is wooded rolling hills and on the west side it is flat as a pancake and every visible acre is cultivated. I always try to imagine that part of the country in its pre-Lewis and Clark state of being covered with waist high grasses and can never quite muster the vision. This trip I will go through at least one National Grassland (Rita Blanca in the far northwest corner of the Texas panhandle on Day 9) in the hopes of getting some sense of that.

The ride through the southern 'hook' of Missouri and Northeastern Arkansas was hot but just this side of unbearably so. I must say that today was the day my rear-end gave out but as I entered the northern Ozarks it got a little cooler and I thought I could make the last 100 miles. Then I ran across Harber's Cycle Parts in Viola Arkansas (see picture on map). At first I rode by because it was so unexpected but figured it was worth a stop just to take a break. Dennis Harber (apparently there is a branch of the family that spells it Harbour but they are not speaking, not quite as bad as the Hatfield and the McCoy's but the comparison was made) was sitting out front and started up the conversation wondering how I was faring in all my gear, I allowed that it was cooler than it looked but not cool enough. There was a wide variety of bikes around, the one that struck my fancy was a pre-body work Gold Wing. Gotta love those flat sixes. Anyway, after chatting about my bike which they had not seen, Dennis dropped the question...how was my rear-end holding out as he had just the thing. And he did, a Pro-Pad which is now safely attached to the seat (Dennis, if you read this...if it is not secured to the seat there is too much movement for any sort of spirited riding, at least in my opinion, I wll have to live with it getting wet and hot). Tomorrow will be the real test as it is every bit of 500 miles from here to Dodge City, KS which is the goal.

Tonight I am camping at Buffalo National River, I think at the same campground the family stayed at in 1998 on our trip (either that or there is a standard layout for campgrounds here. When I told Dennis and the gang at Harber's I was heading here they suggested I check out the Rush Mining Camp at the eastern end of the river (see picture on map). It was a great suggestion, just the kind of history with plaques that I like. It turns out it was a zinc mining camp from the 1880's to the end of WWI and people lived there until the 1960's. When the Federal Government bought the Buffalo, they acquired the then abandoned mining area and have just let the buildings continue their slow return to dust. It is quite cool and worth a repeat trip to walk the mining trail. I was running out of time as I wanted to get to the west end of the river so that I would have a shorter ride tomorrow. I got a chance to navigate my way around some local back roads which ended the day on a high note (one thing I did notice is that the local drivers here definitely know where the gas pedal is).

Don't forget you can follow the link to the Everytrail site to see larger versions of the pix (some of them have things to read and all of them have captions of mine...some are more interesting than others).

PGL-Day7 at EveryTrail


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I live in a silver mine and I call it Beggar's Tomb;
I got me a violin and I beg you call the tune,
anybody's choice, I can hear your voice.
Wo, oh, what I want to know, how does the song go?
-Robert Hunter