Blacksburg, Virginia to Eureka Springs, Arkansas and Back Again

Blacksburg, Virginia to Eureka Springs, Arkansas and Back Again

So, my father-in-law, Wayne, has this Honda Helix 250cc scooter, and a homemade trailer for all his camping gear. The bike with trailer will do 65 mph easily, and last week he rode it from Congress, Arizona (northwest of Wickenburg, which is northwest of Phoenix) to Scootercade 2001 (going on this week) in Eureka Springs, Arkansas, a journey of some 1500 miles. On the way back home, he's going to be probably the only scooter-rider at the Iron Horse Rally in the Four Corners area. I expect he'll probably put more miles on the Helix this month than some of the motorcyclists at Iron Horse will this year, but that's beside the point (or maybe that *is* the point).

Anyhow, I figured, if he can ride his Helix 1500 miles to get there, I should ride the ST the 850 miles from Blacksburg to E'Springs and visit with him for a bit and show him some pictures of his grandsons. Unfortunately I only had the weekend to do it, but I did manage to tack Friday and part of Monday on to make it a longish weekend. I had an interesting time of it, including 6 thunderstorms, 4 traffic-halting tractor-trailer accidents, the better part of the Arkansas armadillos, and some interesting motorcyclist encounters.

I got my gear ready Thursday night and was up at oh-dark-thirty Friday morning and on the road by 4:30 AM. Uneventful ride on I-81 from southwestVirginia to Tennessee and then I-40 through Knoxville where I hit the first traffic snarl coming out of Knoxville. It was already warm and muggy, so I cheated and rode slowly down the right shoulder past the stopped traffic until I got to the reason for the delay: a tandem tractor-trailer had somehow *jumped* the Jersey (3' tall concrete) wall between the east and westbound lanes. I don't know which direction he'd been heading, but he was oriented westbound, with the rear trailer on the westbound side (way smashed up I should add) and the cab and front trailer both on the eastbound side, slightly less smashed. I'd sure like to have seen that trick (from a safe vantage point of course). Back up to speed, and then coming into Nashville, the radio warned us that a tractor-trailer had flipped and was on fire on I-24 in town, so I detoured around that one. Got off of I-40 in Jackson and took US 412 into Missouri and Arkansas, stopping at a Honda dealer for a cool drink and just to see what he was selling: cruisers and CBRs and 4-wheelers. Told him where I was heading and he allowed that the roads in those parts would be a lot of fun (and he was right). By the way, I saw a few dead armadillos along the way. (Those things are weird-looking, kind
of like the horseshoe crabs at Cape Henlopen.) I was planning to get all the way to Eureka Springs before dark and was on track to do that, but just before I got to Hardy, I saw my first big thunderstorm heading my way. So, I stopped at a country store for a drink and snack and waited for it to blow over. A fellow on a sportster, wearing a flag-colored bandana for head protection, also stopped to wait the rain out. "I ain't worried 'bout no lightning, but I ain't wanting to git wayet." So he took off when the rain slacked off but while there was still lightning in the immediate area. I waited a bit longer then headed west again, over the hill, around a curve, and there comes another thunderstorm. I gave it up and got a motel room in Salem and called it a night. Dry county, so no beer to take the edge off of that 750-mile buzz, but I probably got a better night's sleep than I would have if I had found some cool ones.

Now part of my plan was to get some more National Park stamps, and there's 4 within easy reach of Eureka Springs. I figured I wouldn't have a whole day's worth of stuff to talk to Wayne about, so I decided to get those on Saturday morning before making my way to Scootercade. I rode on to Mt Home, then north into Missouri and across US 160 through the Mark Twain Nat'l Forest and then MO 76 to Cassville and north to the George Washington Carver National Monument for their stamp. US 160 and MO 76 are both excellent, wit
h some surprising moves by the road engineers. One of my favorites is the clever way they combine the crests of blind hills with the false apex of decreasing radius turns. I found this particular combination several times which made for some interesting moments. Then I got onto some fairly boring straightaways to get up and over to Ft Scott, Kansas for the stamp at the National Historic Site there and then back south and into Missouri where the roads south of Joplin, Missouri get interesting again. It was along there that I saw another ST (the only other ST I saw on the whole trip). Some nice roads down that way, including MO 90 and MO E (yep they letter their roads, and lest you think that means there's only 26 of them, they also have double-lettered roads) which becomes AR 94 leading me to Pea Ridge where there's a National Military Park commemorating the struggle between Confederacy and Union along the Arkansas/Missouri border during the Civil War. Another stamp and then back on the road to Eureka Springs, this time approaching from the west instead of the east. I should mention that I saw a few more dead armadillos. Then sure enough, about 10 miles (by GPS) from E'Springs, another thunderstorm catches me so I find an abandoned gas station to park under the awning and wait it out. Eventually the lightning seemed to pass and it was just rain, so I suited up but before I even got back on the road it began to strike again. I rode a bit down the road to park under the awning of a hopefully less abandoned station where another bike was waiting it out. Alas it was abandoned too, and its rider had taken refuge in a used blue jeans store across the road. I wandered in and joined him, but soon was looking for an exit as I realized the man and woman who run the place both were non-stop talkers (at the same time!). Fortunately the storm died and we both edged towards the door (I don't know if the proprietors noticed or not) mounted up and headed off in opposite directions. He was riding a Yamaha VeeBikeRoadKingHogStar or something like that, and told me he was thinking about getting a helmet because the rain stings his cheeks when he's riding. Ouch!

I mentioned that the GPS said it was 10 miles to E'Springs. Well, when I got back on the road I saw a sign for the Springs: 18 miles. I glanced at the GPS and now it was saying 9 miles. This could be fun, even more so if the road wasn't soaked. The road, US 62, goes over a couple of mountains on its way to the Springs and it was a nice ride. When I finally reached Eureka Springs, population 1900, it was like riding through New Orleans during Mardi Gras. I've not seen so many tourists except on the beach in years. What a zoo. There must be several thousands of hotel rooms in town, dozens of restaurants, and all sorts of other fun stuff. Eventually I found the Scootercade campsites at the Wanderlust Campground on Passion Play Road. Needless to say, there were lots of Helixes twisting around that campground. I found a likely suspect with a Scootercade nametag. me: "Do you know Wayne Taylor from Arizona? He's here with the Scooter Rally." he: "Do you know what kind of RV he's got?" me: "He doesn't have an RV. He rode here on his scooter." (about this time I opened my eyes and noticed that I was surrounded by big fancy RVs with scooter racks on the back, and the scooters parked under roll-out awnings) It only took him a couple of minutes to find Wayne, who then showed me his scooter and the cool trailer he built for it. We looked over the photos of the grandsons and the summer vacations and compared farkles and had one of the other scooter guys take a couple of new photos and then headed out into town for pizza. While splitting a cheese-lovers pizza which I washed down with Mt Dew and Wayne washed down with coffee, we discussed his other grandsons, our planned visit to Arizona next summer, and the Civil War battlefields at Pea Ridge and Wilsons Creek (Wayne's a Civil War buff). About dark we said our goodbyes and I headed off southeast through the Ozarks towards Memphis. I didn't run into Elvis, but I did see some more dead armadillos. I was on US 65, which is a pretty good two-laner heading towards Little Rock. It was nice and dark but the PIAAs lit up the road and the woods so that I was pretty sure I'd notice any of Bambi's relatives thinking about getting in my way. I didn't see any, but I did see quite a few dead armadillos. I also started noticing that there was a thunderstorm lighting up the sky to the southeast and started worrying about where I was going to be when I finally caught up with it. By the time I made it to Clinton, Arkansas (yeah, I thought there had to be a joke in there somewhere, but just couldn't come up with it), the thunderstorm was pretty much north, south and east, so I called it a night. Another dry county, so another night's sleep unaided by chemistry.

Up early and south just a bit on US 65 before getting off in Bee Branch, where I got the idea to do a scientific survey regarding the ubiquitous Arkansas road-dead armadillo. You see, a friend had warned me to watch out for deer and armadillos. I looked for both and had seen the occasional deer in the woods and fields, but had yet to see a live armadillo. Here was my hypothesis: all the armadillos are dead in the road. I don't know how it would have happened, but I have a theory which I'll tell you in a minute. To test my hypothesis, I counted the dead armadillos between Bee Branch and Rose Bud (there are some really cool town names in Arkansas: Joy, Friendship and Romance are all more or less between Bee Branch and Bee Rock). On that 25-mile stretch of county road, there were 22 dead armadillos. That's about 1 dead armadillo per mile, or 1 dapm. Arkansas's DOT reports that there are 16,366.77 miles of state highways, 67,484.48 miles of county roads, and 13,710.11 miles of municipal streets (I don't know if they really believe these numbers are accurate to the nearest 100th of a mile, but that's what their 2000 annual report says). I reasonably assumed that the dead armadillo distribution on state highways is the same as that on county roads, and that there are no dead armadillos on US highways or municipal streets. Thus there are 83,851 miles of armadillo roads, so there are about 84,000 dead armadillos on Arkansas roads. Armadillos are land animals and Arkansas has 52,075 square miles of land area, whereas the US has a land area of 3,539,230 square miles. According to Smithsonian Magazine, the estimated US population of armadillos is 30 million to 50 million, and I assume there are 40 million, and that they are evenly distributed over the southern 1/3 of the United States. Thus the armadillo density in Arkansas is approximately 34 armadillos per square mile, for a total of about 1.8 million Arkansas armadillos (Damn!). Therefore, only about 5% of the armadillo population is dead in the road, and my hypothesis is incorrect. Nonetheless, I'm planning to write a proposal for a research grant to give this further study, as there are many Arkansas roads that I haven't yet ridden on and perhaps there are more dead armadillos there. If anyone is interested in being co-Principal Investigator on such a research grant proposal, please get in touch with me offline.

Continuing on through Searcy and onto US 64 towards Memphis, I stopped for
a bite in a really wee town near Wynne. When I was getting ready to leave, a nurse in scrubs came over to admire the ST and talk about motorcycles. Turns out she's got a Classic Electro SoftTail Classic or something like that. Then a State Trooper rolled up and strode over (Did he recognize me from some minor infraction many miles away?). Nice guy, knows the nurse, also rides a Harley. Noticed right away that the ST would be uncomfortable because there's no highway pegs. I told him I hadn't yet noticed that discomfort. We discussed speed limits and he assured me that 10-15 over the posted limit on the highway wouldn't get me in trouble. I refrained from asking him whether the speeds I was actually riding would get me in trouble, and then zoomed off, leaving them discussing the Harley comfort zone. On across the Mississippi and through Memphis and Jackson and eventually to Nashville where it was raining pretty steadily. I was in the fast lane at about 75 when I was passed on the right by a fellow on K1200LT with a child passenger. They were wearing helmets at least, but other than that just jeans and sweatshirts, doing 90 in heavy rain in heavy traffic. They disappeared in the mist, which soon became so thick that visibility wasn't good enough to continue riding at the traffic speeds, so I pulled off under the next overpass. As I maneuvered onto the shoulder, I noticed the K12 and the rider and the little girl. The rider walked over and began his stream of consciousness "conversation" before I'd even turned off the bike. I'm pretty sure he was introducing himself and his daughter but with traffic and helmet and ear plugs I didn't hear a word of it. By the time I got the helmet off and plugs out, he was on to telling me that he'd just bought the bike on e-bay, flew to Florida to pick it up and was riding it home. He was averaging 80 mph and showed me his trip computer to prove it and he'd only stopped because the traffic was going too slow. He really wanted an R1150GS, but he found this one and it was too good of a deal to pass up and how much did I think he got it for? "I don't know." It lists for $19,500, and this is a '99 with 24K miles. "I really don't know." Guess. "Okay. About $11,000?" (After all, why would anyone pay more for a used bike than for a new ST? :^} Slightly disappointmented in my guess, he admitted he'd paid $11,500, which is a pretty good deal I think. Anyway, he got back into his flow and while I waited for the rain to slack off and watched for trucks and cars getting ready to mow us down, he carried on about Beemers and Harleys and how Honda copied everything from everybody. I mounted up and took off and never heard from him again.

A bit east of Nashville I ran into some serious lightning and stopped in Lebanon where I joined two other bikes parked in between the stuff for sale under the awning out in front of a gas station. Shortly after my arrival, 8 Harleys with Quebec plates rolled in. While squeezing in betwen the ST and a pickup truck, one of the leather saddle bags popped off my left mirror housing. No damage, but it got us to talking, and I got to practice my French. They were riding to New Orleans and were planning to ride the North Carolina stretch of the Blue Ridge Parkway on their way back home. After a long wait with lightning frequent and close, the sun came out ("Nous avons du soleil!") and I continued on. By now, with all these stops it was after 5 PM and I was still several hours from home, so I stopped in Cookeville to visit my brother and get a good night's sleep.

>From Cookeville to home was almost uneventful, but two more tractor-trailer incidents slowed things down a bit. The first was a cab that was completely burned out. Don't know when it happened, but they had all the traffic blocked in 2 lanes, so it probably was fairly recent. The second wreck had just happened, traffic was backing up and ambulances and fire trucks were heading down the right shoulder as I was maneuvering through the traffic. When I finally made the scene I saw that a sporty car was smashed up in the right lane and an Arkansas Best Freight truck had taken out a hundred feet or so of guard rail before rolling down the slope on the right. The driver was lying on the ground with folks all around him but I couldn't tell what had happened. I stopped at the next rest area and had a conversation with some "Wide Load" follower-truck drivers who had been listening in and they understood that the car had cut off the truck causing the accident. Then I met a retired Baptist minister from Little Rock who was actually on the scene just after the accident. He'd been one of the folks comforting the driver while waiting for the ambulance, and said that the driver looked like he'd be all right. Evidently the cager wasn't hurt. Anyhow, I'd had about enough of accidents and was looking forward to just getting back to the house. Continued on I-40 and I-81and rolled into Blacksburg in mid-afternoon. And I forgot to mention the 4 automobile accidents I saw, only one of which looked like there might have been an injury. I may have to get one of those m/c seat belts or inflatable suits.

Grand totals: 2200 miles, 5 states, 3 national park stamps, too many dead armadillos to count, way buncha harleys, 1 ST, August 10-13, 2001.

Christopher D. Hall
Aerospace and Ocean Engineering
Virginia Tech
Blacksburg VA 24061
v: 540 231-2314
f: 540 231-9632
e: chall@aoe.vt.edu
w: http://www.aoe.vt.edu/~chall

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