Thursday August 19, 2010. Eureka Springs, Arkansas to Sullivan, Missouri.
I'm writing this on Friday night because last night we had no internet service.
We woke up to what promised to be a hot, sunny day. Forecast of 96. It was all of that plus maybe more.
Pre-ride Scripture reading was Isaiah 46: "... I am God, and there is no other. I am God and there is no one like Me..."
We headed east from Eureka Springs on US 62 and turned north at Berryville on to State hwy 21. This was a less traveled, twisty road that headed up to the Missouri state line. Right on the state line is a little town called "Blue Eye". Half the town is in Arkansas, half in Missouri. We ate a delicious breakfast on the Missouri side in a little restaurant called "VJ's Blue Eye Diner". Once again, we did not need to go hungry today....
From Blue Eye we headed east on State 86, across Table Rock Lake and over to US65. We went south on 65 for just a few miles back into Arkansas, then east on State 14. It was very hot by now. We turned north on State 125 to the Peel Free Fairy. The state runs a fairy boat across Bull Shoals Lake. Since it was free, we wanted to try that adventure of putting our motorcycles on a boat. On the other side of the lake we were back in Missouri. We will be in Arkansas no more this trip. This begins our trip home. Our original plan was to go to Branson and perhaps take in a show before heading north. However, with the heat and the expected traffic around Branson and our desire to get closer to our Friday's destination of Hannibal, MO we decided to skip Branson and take some twisties in a northly direction.
We stopped for gas at a little General Store in a dinky town called Protem. It had to be at or around 100 degrees. We stood in the store for at least 30 minutes talking to the owners and standing under their A/C ceiling registers. A local came in who is a biker and he helped us find some less traveled and twisty roads north and head us up towards our ultimate destination of Hannibal.
These were nice roads but eventually we had to get onto some main roads and deal with heavy traffic. We finally found a DQ at a town called Caboo. This was the first DQ we had seen since leaving Iowa 4 days ago. While cooling off and enjoying some ice cream treats we took a closer look at maps and started to try and figure out how far we were going to go today. We realized that we weren't too far from Lloyd's sister's house at Sullivan, MO not far from St. Louis. We had no desire to go to St. Louis with all the traffic that would require but Lloyd said that his sister would be glad to put us up for the night. He called her, and sure enough, we had a destination settled. Plus Wayne would finally have a place to pitch his tent after driving around with it for about 2000 miles.
Darlene is Lloyd's sister's name and her husband, Terry. They had three delightful granddaughters staying with them as well. In spite of her short notice she cooked up a delicious meal of meat balls and baked potatoes. We ate like kings. After I pitched my tent in their back yard, we played an 8 ball tournament in their family room. The team of Lloyd and Terry beat the team of Wayne and Keith 2 games to 1. The final tie breaker game was a nail biter in that Wayne won the game by sinking the 8 ball but also lost the game by scratching on the same shot. Argh!
Being at Darlene and Terry's was an excellent way to end a very hot ride. Thanks so much to those two!
