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DAY
TEN COMMENTARY
I don't believe I've yet mentioned that there are a LOT of
churches down here. They are located in big buildings alongside
interstates, in small buildings that look like they were once banks or
realtor's offices, and in places that look merely like houses. If I had
to, I'd say it was a tie between central Louisiana and northwest
Arkansas, with Alabama closely behind, for the most places of worship
per unit of distance traveled.
Upon waking and heading down to the lobby of the Park Hotel, I was
thrilled to note that Sinatra was still being primarily featured over
the sound system, so I concluded that the musical taste of this hotel
is outstanding (FWIW, the Microsoft Word dictionary apparently
recognizes the word “Sinatra” -- Ed).
Was I hung over? Perhaps a little
bit. Certainly I did not get cheated the night before, thanks to the
generosity of the local barkeeps, but it hadn’t been a very long night,
so maybe it was just altitude sickness.
Kidding on that one.
I managed to pull out of the room in reasonably quick fashion, having
already secured use of one of the two luggage carts available, although
an added morning routine was to fill the hydration backpack with ice
and water before bolting. When I got down to my VIP parking space, a
dude was power washing the sidewalk, which was cool, except that this
could also have been termed the “power filthying” of the rig, because it
appeared that that was where approximately 97.6% of the dirt ended up.
Hey, the thing’s certainly no trailer queen, and it’s gonna get dirty
during this gig, but give a guy a break!
I had noted that there was an observation tower -- the “Mountain Tower”
-- atop the peak abutting downtown, so I went up to visit. More extreme
twisties for the bike! This set me back six smackers to get in but it
was well worth it. On the way up, the voice-over in the glassed-in
elevator mentioned that the third level was open-air, which admittedly
made The Chief (tm) a bit nervous – he had been shaky on the more
extreme catwalks up on Chimney Rock three years before, so here would
he be reduced to weak-kneed clinging to the rail?
Folks, it worked out OK for all involved -- even if a little old lady
from Tulsa, OK wondered why this strapping young stud was holding onto
her elbow near every railing -- and it was a very worthwhile visit. I
wished there was more of a view of Lake Hamilton, but the downtown
vistas were available in all their glory. There was also a
very
interesting (and surprisingly objective) history of Hot Springs,
plus a
video about Bill Clinton’s rise in politics and old high school pix and
so on. Ah, to long for the days of budget surpluses and not being hated
by most of the world. Not to mention the drafting of anti-terror
guidelines and specific mentioning of Al Qaeda as a threat to national
security -- naturally ignored by the Republicans until 9/11, because
until then they were focused on the completely fabricated reports of
the trashing of the White House, which then disappeared once the
whistle was blown (to which my man The Tokish One [tm] might say:
“hmmm”). Having had sex with an intern -- a terrible decision both as a
President and a husband, and a terrible decision to employ subterfuge
to deflect discovery of the truth. But the current administration has
been having sex (read: “f-word-ing” -- Ed.) the whole
country, and the world, since taking power so what was worse?
Rte. 7 out of Hot Springs took me past many more churches, some former
lodging and dining establishments which had apparently failed as the
town’s allure faded, some current lodging and dining establishments
which looked like they should have closed up long ago, and eventually
up into hills and winding roads and more lovely scenery. At the end of
the most scenic stretch, after a long downhill run into Ola, AR
(“hello, Ola!” Har de har har -- Ed.),
there was a Conoco gas station offering prices starting at $3.839, and
This Guy was all over it.
Alas, the “Conoco Effect” (see Day
Five) was to strike yet again. Upon
arriving inside, I noticed there were at least three registers, all
staffed, yet there were three or four customers lined behind each. What
the h-e-double-hockey-sticks was going on? Ah, there’s the rub -- the
cashiers also fetch lunch for these people, and apparently this was the
last place on earth serving food, so everyone not at the counter had to
wait for the girl to take the latest food order, go gather it, then
take payment. It just did not look good. At one point an enterprising
young’un moved to yet another register and barked out, “Can I help the
next person in line?” A few folks -- including your The Chief (tm) --
tried to look casual while oozing over in the attempt to mask the utter
desperation in wishing to initiate a fuel purchase. Sadly, I was only
the second-fastest to get there. What’d the guy in front of me do?
Order food.
Finally roaring out of there after literally thirteen minutes, I was
thrilled that a tractor-trailer hauling a load of garbage had taken up
position in front of me. An instant before I was about to pull the
trigger on the most ridiculous illegal passing maneuver of the trip by
far, there was a left-turn blinker, and I wished the guy luck to where
ever the hell he thought he was headed. Next burg after the land
flattened out, the town of Dardanelle. Corn and other crops stretched
almost as far as the eye could see on either side, bounded eventually
by the same hills from which I had just finished descending. I crossed
the Arkansas River into the Port of Dardanelle and, wait, now what’s
that monstrosity looming in the distance?
Oh, OK, it’s a Wal-Mart -- I
guess we’re back in civilization :-(
I had also
noticed a sudden
preponderance of small business with a Mexican bent, and almost before
I had a chance to wonder about that, I saw a Tyson chicken plant.
Hadn’t the poultry industry recently been taken to task for
questionable immigrant hiring practices? Ah, if only they were all
subsidiaries of Halliburton, there’d be no problem.
Back where the rubber meets the road, passing through Russellville I
encountered some stop-and-go traffic in humid, 96-degree weather due to
a car accident, but shortly thereafter reached a decision point: do I
continue up Rte. 7 towards Harrisonburg, then cut west to Eureka
Springs, or take the Interstate westward right now and then go north?
How the hell should I know?
My thought was this: I was kind of sick of the more recent Rte. 7 act,
so I thought I’d take the Interstate and do that route. The first few
miles were gorgeous, taking me high alongside Lake Dardanelle. Suddenly
I realized that if I went this way, then when I came back a few days
hence I’d be literally backtracking on my route, and how silly would
that be on a seven thousand mile trip? So I ducked off the superslab at
Clarksville hoping to find a route north through the Ozarks.
Somewhere on Rte. 103 in Clarksville I passed two thousand trip miles
thus far, but I certainly wasn’t two-thirds of the way across the
country. Who planned this thing? Oh, wait, um…OK, so I pushed directly
north, making the mistake of trusting the GPS to find me some route
because my print maps of Arkansas were not sufficiently detailed enough
to include
good secondary routes. The road through Ozark National Forest was
fantastic, with more beautiful mountain scenery. Then it
plateaued
and I
passed through tiny “towns” anchored only by general stores. What did
the GPS try to do next? It selected routes for me over “county roads”
that were steep, dirt and gravel roads mostly covered in sharp,
fist-sized stones. I tried one and said forget it. Another, same thing.
Yet another, ditto. I had pretty much run out of roads that would go
north through this stretch of the Ozarks without popping all of my
tires. A quick check with the good folks at the Catalpa Store
--
inside
of which I wished I
had had time for lunch, because that’s how good the cooking aromas were
-- revealed that I had no chance if I wanted to avoid the rocks, so I
headed way
back down through the Forest, getting caught behind a road maintenance
crew through the twisties and proceeding at about 15 MPH. The whole
ordeal added 50 miles and ninety minutes to my trip, and who knows what
it did for gas mileage (actually, it was still not that bad at 39.63 --
Ed.)
Mercifully I came across a county road that was not a bombed-out
logging trail, meaning that I didn’t have to backtrack all the way to
the Interstate, and so for each mile I proceeded on asphalt I reasoned
meant one mile less if it ever came to dirt. Well, it did not, and
therefore I had myself another route around and up through the
mountains -- twisty, steeply climbing roads sometimes traversing ridges
and crests, other times opening to wide plateaus supporting farming or
livestock ranching. It was hotter up here, and some of the cows thought
they had the answer
to that. Little did I know I was doing what was
referred to as the “Pig Run” up around Rte.23, and eventually to Rte.
62, into Eureka Springs.
The approach took me past some motels
and other businesses I recognized from my research on the web, but I
was not prepared for the turn-in to the historic downtown district
where my crib, the Basin
Park Hotel, awaited me. What a cute little
town we had here! Hills
and sharp rock faces everywhere, with streets, houses and buildings
built into
them, staircases
from one street to another, etc. Face it: any time you throw varied
topography into the mix,
The
Chief (tm) is likely a buyer -- see San Francisco, Carmel, Montmartre,
and so on. So I loved what I was seeing even before I got
off the bike.
Once I did get off of it, the story changed just a bit. The hotel was
located right on a steep upward part of the street, and the road curved
down to the sidewalk, so not only would the weight of the trailer
perhaps try to pull it down the hill, but it was barely leaning over on
its sidestand. I could see one (or both) disasters happening as I
unloaded weight from the rig. As far I knew there were no bellmen here
---
they had all quit on their first day --- so I had to wrestle a cart
down
off of
the high curb over to the bike, load it up, ease it down the hill to a
ramp in the curb, then push it back up the hill. Even the
cart/wheelchair access to the hotel was precarious. Next, I somehow
went to and unloaded all of my stuff in the wrong room. What,
was
this my first time outdoors? Ridiculous!
Once back where I belonged, all was as it should have been: the room
was big, with a high ceiling and deck right off of the hallway. Only
one thing was odd -- it was a handicapped-equipped room, so the shower
head was only four feet off of the floor!
The town, in my opinion, was super-cute.
I walked all over the place,
and again, I loved the hilly thing, but also it was eclectic without
ignoring attention to detail, and featured all kinds of galleries and
artistic businesses without coming across as chintzy or fake. At the
moment I must admit I cannot think of the particular, similar places
that I do
find to be artificial, but they are out there, and we’ve all found
ourselves visiting them from time to time. “Not here”, was all I could
come up with. My
hotel had a restaurant on a high terrace
overlooking the street below,
a sauna on a deck abutting a cliff in the rear courtyard (the
installation of which I was to learn was not an easy engineering feat
to overcome), and a lounge on the top floor featuring billiard tables
and the like.
Many of the local restaurants were closed on Monday, but I went for a
walk and found a few places to hit. Jack’s Lounge, down a half-flight
of stairs from Spring Street, was darker n’ heck when I first walked
in, but my eyes adjusted and it was full of nice, friendly people. For
dinner I visited a place called the Pied Piper, which I suspected might
be a throwaway but was not. The menu had some interesting variety
which, at the very least, suggested an adventurous spirit in the
kitchen. As such, I tried something called the “Scotch Egg”, chorizo
with some spiciness to it wrapped around a hard-boiled egg. Yum! I
wished there had been more cabbage on the corned beef n’ cabbage
sandwich, though it was still tasty and I’m not even sure where I come
off wanting more cabbage anyway. Almost as I was ready to call it a
night I happened to chat with a nice couple from Tulsa, OK via
Pittsburgh, and then met a few women who were friends with a guy who
looked exactly like my Uncle Bobby. They were heading out to another
place even after that, but how could I ax for any more? I went back to
the hotel to charge up for the next day.
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