Arkansas Railing - A trip to motorcycling heaven

My first multi-day motorcycle trip was to Arkansas with Chris in Sept 05. We has n option to going to Southern Ohio and riding West Virginia, while staying with Chris' family in Cleveland. However, Chris had already ridden those roads and since the temps were already dropping, we decided to head to new terrority and go south.

Now Arkansas might not seem like an ideal vacation spot, but the motorcyclist is not an ideal vactioner. We're after the good ride - the road less traveled, the twisties, the scenery and the chance to interact with the locals.

I'm quite the control freak and on our previous day trips, I had almost every turn marked down on a map. Not to say that I wasn't adventurous, but just trying to get to and ride the best road in the given time. Chris (being old and wise, more old though) shared with me that having a plan is good but so is deviating from it.

We rode down to St. Louis, opened up the map, selected the twisty-looking roads and headed out. And boy did we ever find them twisty roads, and that scenery and those locals.

Read the entire trip report and see all the pictures here.

Here's a few highlights:


Myra, my Suzuki GSX-R600


I come in peace. Show me your twisties


I swear I was doing the speed limit


Riding into the sunset


Crossing the state line


The reason why we rode 600 miles of highway


It really is quite rural outside the big cities. This is where Chris got friendly with one of the locals...


Me, Myra and the desolate road... well, Chris was there too


At the highest point in the Ozarks


Speechless... this kind of scenery is a hazard to motorcyclists


Big milestone for me - first time doing 10,000 miles (in 4 months of owning the bike)


mmmm, daddy like


Chris, getting friendly with the locals, Rene


Down by the river side...


At the St. Louis Gateway Arch