It’s 8:52pm. It’s just about completely dark outside and I just barely finished setting up camp and getting set for the night. 497.8 miles in and I’m at Lake Village RV camp in Lake Village Arkansas. Right on the border with Mississippi and almost right on the river. I can feel the humidity in the air. Between that and having to spray my self with bug spray the moment I parked and, well. I’ll leave it at that.
Would you believe that state parks and even RV campgrounds are rare in central and SE Arkansas? They are, for sure. The one I found in Warren was nice enough but they didn’t want just tent campers. So tack on another 50ish miles and now I’m here. Even Warren was over 100 miles after Tim and I parted ways.
Tim.
That guy. He barely knew me from Adam. He had been on a big motorcycle trip and had mentioned on a forum I follow that he’d be in my area of Utah. Megan and I rode out to meet him and his company and we did a big ride together. That’s all. One day. But he supports what I’m doing and he’s just an all around great guy, so he spent last night and almost the whole day with me today. Just to ride and to show me where the good roads were. And also to provide some much needed company. Thanks Tim.
We really did hit some great roads. I’m of the opinion though that you’d be hard pressed to find bad roads in this area. We had a really great time, judging by the smiles on our faces. At lunch we came to the conclusion that Tim needed another night over before he’d press for home, and I needed to push farther to the south east of the State in order to set me up better for tomorrow.
We split ways in Hot Springs and it was initially hard to be back on my own again. I settled in and just forced myself to feel the flow of the bike. It was interesting how the scenery changed though. Quite a few more small towns and in between them, it was obvious I was in logging country which kind of surprised me. Beautiful nonetheless.
I’ve come to the conclusion that you can’t get anywhere fast in Arkansas, and maybe the whole South, though that has yet to be determined. You can be on what you think is a highway, it has four lanes and a median, although the speed limit is never higher than 55. Then as you get close to a town, the lanes will disappear and you’ll find yourself driving through a tired old town at 25, and you’re thinking where the hell did the highway go?
So I’m driving through logging country and I realize that today must be the official state of Arkansas day to mow your lawn. I’m absolutely not kidding when I say that everyone was mowing today. If I didn’t see them actually mowing, then it was obvious the grass had just been mowed. This is no small feat here because these people have MASSIVE lawns. Acres. I’m sure it grows wild here and they just start mowing until they get bored. Even the state itself had crews out doing the sides of the roads. I know I’ve gone on and on about this but it really was on my mind a lot today, so you get to hear about it as well.
The last 30 miles of my ride was out of the logging forests and onto flat farmland near the Mississippi river. It was a sudden transition that took me by surprise. One second there were 100 foot tall trees and then there was a field of corn, and that was it.
I’m tired. I’m beat. I’m content. It was a big day and it was worth it.
Tomorrow I’ll head towards Vicksburg where I’ll stop to check out the battlefield. Then it’ll be on to New Orleans where I have some big news I’ll be sharing later. I’m excited.
Until then…
PTSD and a Motorcycle 