My wife was planning on taking the kids to see the grandparents and her sister over spring break so that seemed like a good time to take a couple days.  I took Thursday and Friday off for spring break week and started scouting for good spots to camp. I didn’t want to overplan and then lock in. The plan was to just roll with it and have fun. My original thought was to spend the day in Arkansas and end up central or eastern. Then I’d explore some roads around the eastern side of the state and work back toward home direction. Then Saturday would be a nice day to take it easy and look around without needing to push much.

The weather reports got worse every day as the trip got closer. The temps dropped a little more and rain/cold/snow were creeping into Saturday evening. I started looking farther south and considering some Texas options (Big Bend Park, Gulf, Hill Country, etc.). The night before I was going to take off, the weather said it was supposed to be freezing Friday night/Saturday morning. It was supposed to be 60′s on Thursday with 40′s low and 70′s Friday afternoon before the cold front came in. This was still going forward even if it needs to be changed. I scaled back to one night at Talimena with a fairly ambitious route back through central Arkansas then home (assuming everything worked out).

Here we are all loaded up and ready to roll.  Tent, sleeping bag, sleeping pad and a stuff sack full of clothes in the dry bag with some Rok straps holding it all very securely. Laptop, food, jacket liner, extra warm gloves, rain pants, walking around shoes, stove and a couple Nalgen bottles of water were loaded in the top case. I threw my phone, camera, maps and a few miscellaneous things in the tank bag. Probably could have been on the road for several days with this load but that’s part of what I wanted to check out. The dry bag and top case weighed 45 pounds (case/bag and all) according to the bathroom scale. I noticed a little bit of weight but it wasn’t much of a change at all.

It’s warmed up to a comfortable temp and the roads are pretty quiet on a Thursday afternoon. Here’s a little chance to stretch and adjust.

I was rolling along the Talimena Scenic Drive a bit when I decided to stop and check a scenic overlook since there seemed to be one every 1/2 mile. There were several people at this particular overlook. All the others I saw from the road had been empty. I pulled in behind a yellow V-Strom with a guy in yellow gear smoking a cigar. We get to talking and he tells me that he also has a yellow VFR. Here I am riding a red bike and wearing a blue jacket. My perforated leather jacket is yellow/black. I didn’t know you were supposed to color match. The people in the cars take off and we hang out talking for a bit. Turns out he’s from Dallas area and was taking his newly acquired bike out for a test run. He bought it a few weeks ago to take on an Alaska trip this year because he didn’t think it was the best choice for that (even though about every kind of bike has done that trip). We looked around and noticed a lot of smoke rising up and down the valley. I noticed that a lot of ditches, fields and brush piles were burning on the way here. The smoke was so thick in the valley on the other side of Mena that it looked dark and orange even though there was a couple hours of daylight left. The Strom rider was telling me about a side road that was supposed to be pretty fun and that he was going that way to check it out. I was getting low on fuel and knew if I could make another 10 miles or so before the warning light came on that I could make it on into Mena. I didn’t let up on the gas because worst case, I’d double back and take some more twisties. The light started blinking over 20 miles later so I was fine.

I got back to the campground and setup in the semi darkness. The wind is getting stronger and colder. It blows my stove so much it ends up going out early with a lukewarm pot of water. I threw in some oatmeal instead of fighting with it. Peaches, granola bar and a can of V8 rounded up supper. I added a couple layers and crawled into the sleeping bag. The breeze was blowing through the tent pretty good and the temp was already dropping below 40. Stupid me, I checked the overnight low of 47 in Mena, AR in the valley. It ended up being around 37 in my tent on the mountain according to my thermometer hanging in the tent. It was cold, 2:00 in the morning and I was still trying to figure out if I was going to ever do this camping thing again. I finally pulled my fleece pullover out of the sleeping bag’s pillow pocket and positioned it half under my head and half over my face. I fell asleep again and slept like a log. The answer in the morning to last night’s debate was “of course I’m doing this again, I love getting up in the morning at camp” (strange because I’m really not a morning person normally). Next time I’m bringing a camp pillow and a stocking cap.

I got up at 7:00 feeling pretty good after some good sleep and a walk up the hill to the restroom. Crawled back in the sleeping bag while I listen to the ipod and wait for it to warm up a few degrees. I decided to skip the push back through Arkansas and just let it warm up a bit before I get moving again. I should have gotten around quicker since I ended up losing the extra layers because I was getting too warm. That’s why this was a test run.

There was a little breeze but I made a windscreen with my laptop bag and the food bag. Much better than the night before. I was actually able to boil some water without the wind trying to blow it out.

Breakfast is caramel hot cocoa and an apple cereal bar. There’s plenty of other food along but I wanted to get on the road and lunch isn’t too far off. Time to finish packing and head up to the Inn to pay for my camping spot. A grand total of $15.50 with taxes.

Here’s a video from the OK/AR state line back toward Talihina OK. I might need to re-upload this video or break it apart. My other videos on Vimeo were taken with the same camera but were full frame.

I gassed up in Talihina and found some lunch at Underwood’s Outlaw BBQ on the south side of town. There were some other places along the way out to the scenic bypass but I thought I’d look around first. There were several cars here when I pulled up so I thought that was pretty good sign.

I got a spicy sausage bbq sandwich and potato salad. The potato salad was very peppery, almost spicy. It was all really good.

The trip home was fairly uneventful except for meeting a flatbed semi on a 15mph switchback north of Talihina. I saw him in plenty of time and rode clear out on the shoulder to give him room. I was planning on hitting it harder than I did on the way in. It was a beautiful day with light traffic. I made the most of the few curves on the way home and kept a good pace. Pulled into the garage a little past 2:00pm and took a shower. I went to an afternoon movie (Green Zone) then came home and finished unpacking.

The family decided to have a big supper together instead of trying to get ahead of the weather that kept me from staying out another day. They ended up in the middle of it and had to get a motel north of Kansas City. I had a really good night’s sleep without anyone around to wake me up.

Turn to watch the garage door come down, flip the sun visor on the helmet, let the clutch out and I’m rolling as it begins. The bike is glued to the road as I turn out of the drive and go around the corner to exit the neighborhood. The next hour and change (my watch didn’t jump in front of my eyes so I’m not sure how long exactly) was an exercise in effortlessness. Every shift was precise, every light was green, every car would turn off or be right in the passing zone to glide by and the wind just gently flowed by with its comfortable cool breeze.

The mechanics of brake, weight, shift, look, accelerate seemed to be far away today. They were still happening but it seemed more like flowing with stream than negotiating the road. I would enter a turn a few mph faster than I normally do but it was so easy. I’d pick my apex and the bike would just take me there. My exit speeds were higher than my normal pace when I’m deliberately trying to make a quick clean curve. It just flows so smoothly around the bends.

There are several other bikes on the road today. Everyone gives a big wave today. Seems they are glad to see a break in the rain with a beautiful day too. This trip was over far too soon today. I glide into the garage and park the bike. The gear goes back on the hangers in the corner of the garage.

I change into my mowing clothes and head out to take care of grass with 3 weeks worth of rain fueled growth. Somehow the mowing didn’t seem to take long today. I ride to church to run sound for the youth group(always the tech). The usual “Do you ride a motorcycle?” question (helmet sitting on top of the wireless receivers and the jacket on my chair) doesn’t get an answer tonight. I just smile and they know the answer.

Sorry about no pictures but I don’t think I would have bothered to take any even if I remembered to grab the camera.

We suit up and head out of the neighborhood. We get to the first stop light (1/4 mile) and he’s trying to talk to me. I stop at the light and turn around to find out he was saying “This is fun!” . We get another 1/2 mile down the road and he’s talking and pointing into the subdivision of his classmate Creed. I didn’t catch exactly what he was saying but just nodded and pointed up at a formation of airplanes overhead (Was there supposed to be an airshow today?). We get to the next light and he tells me “That was Creed’s house, well his street because I can’t see the house. What were you pointing at?”. I was thinking this could be a long ride with 3 conversations in 1.25 miles. I’m torn on whether or not I want to get an intercom setup with him jabbering all the time.

We settle in and there’s no talking for a little while (ahhhhhh). He’s looking around and seems to be doing fine. We go through some small curves with some late turn-in’s to make them a little more fun. I slow down to ask if he’s OK and the response was “GO!GO!GO!”. Some back roads and winding through a couple creek bottoms bring us out to a minor highway. Decision time: Are we riding to ride or should we look for a destination? Me: “You want to go to a lake or ride around?” Him: “Let’s go to the lake!!”.

We head south and cross over the Arkansas river. I’ve been noticing he’s been looking around and moving more on this trip. He seems to be a lot more comfortable on the bike. All of a sudden there’s a couple hands on my shoulders and he’s standing on the pegs to get a better look. I slow down and he asks me “Does that hurt your shoulders?”. I tell him that it doesn’t hurt me but he needs sit down and hold on. We are getting close to Haskell, OK so I decide to turn down the Stone Bluff Winery road. It’s a couple miles long and straight but a few of the hills are like a roller coaster. I hear him trying to talk to me as we come up to the first stop sign before the hills. I just pull over and turn the bike off. “Dad, your helmet says ‘D’—-’O'—” (I know where this is going) “–’T’. ‘D-O-T’, why does it say dot on your helmet?”.

Roll on down the highway and turn south at Leonard. There’s a couple good curves on the lake road but it’s rough pavement. Up over the crest of the hill. The road going down to the lake is pretty steep. I’m in engine braking in 2nd and still need to grab the brakes to slow some. I was hoping there was some overflow coming off the lake. There’s a channel that drops into the valley with a couple waterfalls. Unfortunately the lake was down a bit right now so no cool waterfalls.

We go around the lake (it’s small) to the covered picnic area on the far side to park. We see a couple boys playing behind a rock across the road while we are taking our gear off. He asks if he can go down to the dock and I tell him to go ahead. There’s another boy that’s a couple years older than Gabriel fishing with his mother. We look around and enjoy the scenery. It’s late afternoon and the sun is shining off the water pretty good. Mmmm sunburn. I figured we’d hang out for a few minutes then get back on the road. The mother starts talking and we find out they live 5 minutes away and come down to fish for perch regularly. “We have an extra pole if your son wants to fish”. He was all over that since he’s never been fishing before.

45 minutes and just a couple nibbles but he’s enjoying himself. The other boy caught 3 fish in the time we were there and Gabriel really liked that. We also got to hear someone in the distance trying to rock out from where they were stuck in the hills. Weeeerrrrrr, Weerrrrrr, some unintelligible frustrations, Weeeerrrr, Weeeeerrrrr, more frustrations, Weeeeeeeerrrrrrrrrrr, normal driving sound.

I had agreed to help some friends tonight so I figured it was time to go. I didn’t plan on spending an hour here but it was worth having some fun. Time to head back up the hill to head for home.

The boys playing behind the boulder across the road were talking about cool rocks they found. They saw us coming up the hill and ducked down. We could see their heads poking out and heard whispering. Gabriel says “I’m going to go over there”. I spoke loudly “I think there’s a bear over there, better throw a rock at him”. The boys still kept popping their heads out so I guess I didn’t scare them too bad.

We’re getting ready to get back on the bike and I ask him “Was this a fun adventure?”. He replies “This isn’t an adventure”. “Why not?”. “You have to go around the world and get treasure if you are going to have an adventure. Get some pirate treasure and shoot someone if they try to take your treasure”. I explained to him that we aren’t going to shoot anyone over some treasure. “You got to go somewhere you’ve never been before and do something you’ve never done. Isn’t that an adventure?”. He replies “It was fun but I think we need some treasure too.”

I guess I need to forget the intercoms for now and buy a handheld GPS. Maybe some motorcycle rides to go geocaching will make it an adventure. I’ll just have to make sure we go after some caches with more than a logbook.  I see there’s 5 geocaches at this lake. Maybe we can come back and have a “real” adventure.

I know this was a lot of talking for a 60-something mile round trip to drown a worm but it was fun to share my time with my son. Glad you came along.

My 6 year old has been interested in my motorcycle since I got it last year after some time away from bikes. He went from saying “I would like to ride when I’m older” to “I’m ready to ride when I get a helmet and gloves”.  I measure his head and order an XS full faced helmet and wait for a good opportunity. It was a nice day today and the 2nd child is due in a little over a week so I decided the time was right. We ran down to pick up some gloves and a jacket to complete the outfit.

He picks out some sunglasses too while we are there. I get him in his gear and he puts the glasses on. My wife and I say that he looks like Iceman from Top Gun. He’s thinking Iceman the superhero and starts posing.

Geared up and ready to head out.

Time for the fun. Two blocks out of the neighborhood and he’s yelling at me pretty intensely. I find the next drive and pull in. He looks worked up and about ready to cry. He’s not too sure about this and informs me that he’s walking back to the house. I tell him that I’ll give him a ride back the house if he really wants to go back. His reply “Let’s go to the next drive and then we can turn around”.

The “next drive” turns out to be a couple miles away after some easy curves. We hopped off and look around the parking lot a bit. I ask him if he wants to go back or does he want to drive out to his friend Isaac’s house (another 10miles from there). He decides that we should go there since we are having fun now.

We take the scenic way to Isaac’s house to find out they aren’t home.

Another decision to make, turn around or let’s go on to the next town to Sonic. His answer is “I want a grilled cheese and the toy”. We ride a bit farther into the next town without event but he’s seeming much more relaxed on the back of the bike. He’s looking around and is sitting up instead of leaning on me like when we started.

We take our gear off and see that we picked up 2 or 3 hitchhikers (tiny Praying Mantis).

Just hanging out waiting for some food.

He was feeling so happy that he was doing a crazy dance after this picture.

I make a quick call home to inform my wife that we are going to be longer than the quick ride around the block we said we were doing. We talk and finally finish up the food. We suit back up and start heading out. We are circling around back of Sonic to head out and I hear him yelling again. I think “Here we go again 20 miles from home”. I stop at the drive and ask him if he’s ok. “Yeah, I said BLAST OFF!! Now let’s go!!!”

We head back down some rough blacktop back roads and get back to our town. I start seeing this red and black glove in my right mirror. He’s just having a good time back there playing in the wind. I wish I could have got a picture of that but I promised my wife no picture taking in motion (she doesn’t like it when I do so I promised I wouldn’t with our son). I got to the twisties near our house and I hit them a bit faster this time.

Here he is after the ride.

He tells me “You went too fast in those curves”. I ask if it scared him. “No, you were just going too fast”.

We’ve been hanging out tonight and dad is his favorite person right now. I’m really glad he enjoyed it and now I need to get some good pants and boots on him. I didn’t want to go too overboard in case he hated it but I wanted to make sure that he had something.

My wife was getting her hair done so I knew I had to be back to pick up my son so I couldn’t get too far away. I decided highway 80 would be a good destination for today. It’s a bit rough but I wasn’t planning on pushing too hard. I’m just out enjoying the nice day.

I was a little tired so I thought I’d pull over and drink my caffeine that I picked up when I topped off in Coweta. I noticed that this pull off was really a trail so I decided to head down it a bit.

It’s a little rocky but fairly decent trail overall. The SV is definitely geared too high for this but it’s handling it fine. I really miss having a dirtbike around about now.

A small creek running through with plenty of rocks. I wanted to check some other spots out so I decided to turn around here.

Looks like I’m not going this way either.

I decided to get back on the pavement so I can save some time for more wandering later in the trip. Heading down 51 toward Wagoner.

This is where the batteries gave out and the spares are on the kitchen counter.

I see a sign “Porter 7 miles” between Wagoner and Coweta. I decide to take it so I can take 51B, 104 (back way into Haskell), 72 and Indian Road (161st). It starts out paved and quickly starts alternating sections of rock and rough asphalt. It turns completely to rock before the overpass for the turnpike and T’s right after the overpass. No sign at the T so I choose right since it’s going west. I figured I could adjust if it wasn’t the right way. Turns out it wasn’t the right way. The road gets worse and there’s grass growing in the middle of it. There’s rocks in a couple of the hills that weren’t cut out. It just drops and you get light going over it. It dumps into someone’s drive so I backtrack to the last intersection and jog north a mile before turning west again. This road does go through and I catch 51B heading north/south instead of catching it east/west like I had originally intended.

It’s fairly smooth sailing from here. Highway 104 goes along some sod farms, has a couple 25mph 90 degree turns and a 35mph sweeper before it crosses the Arkansas and heads into Haskell. Head up 72 toward Coweta and cross the river again. Turn on Indian Road (161st)and follow it until it turns north at county line road and on into BA. I get back to the house about the time I normally get home on a weekday. Jump in the Jeep and go pick up my son at daycare at the regular time.

Seeing how today and the next few days are turning out, I’m really glad I went out for a while yesterday. Might not have been really far or really exciting but I enjoyed myself. I have to take the opportunities as they come. Now I’m going go back to drooling over a Husqvarna TE610.

Sometimes I even drive the bike. I’ve been taking a few trips on the weekends and losing track of time. I try to take the camera with me and get some shots whenever I get to a town I haven’t shot before. Last few rides, the camera has been staying home. I’m trying to find the balance in riding and picture taking. Guess I need to get a nice tank bag to keep the camera in so it’s not in the way. I’ve put some pictures up in the gallery over on my other site (strog.org). I went to Spavinaw, OK the other day and it has a really nice windy road heading there. It was pretty in town with the creek running by. I wish I had the camera with me. The first longer trip I took on the bike was to go to Tahlequah, OK.

The more time I’ve put on the bike, the more I realize that it’s like starting over after being away for several years. Sometimes I want to get nervous at a turn that seems too fast when I know it’s easily within my skill level and capabilities of the bike. I take a breath, think my way through the turn, look through and exit cleanly. The turn wasn’t too fast or difficult, I just need to get comfortable again. I need to take the motorcycle safety course(s) to speed up the process. I’d like to eventually do some track days on the bike but that will be down the road. I’ll go out to Hallett next weekend and just watch.

The banker and I talked quite a bit about motorcycles since he rode bikes too. I had tried to get Ducati Multistrada and had made a few trips to talk to him and actually made my bids from my laptop in his office. He asked me to bring the bike by sometime so he could see it. It was a few minutes till 5:00 so I brought it over. We talked for 20 minutes while Ellen went down the street to pickup Gabriel from preschool. Ellen pulled up next to me and rolled Gabriel’s window down. He was grinning from ear to ear.

We went to Rib Crib to eat and then I went for a ride. It cruised along nicely around 5000rpm or so and picked up a little vibration around 5500rpm. A twist of the throttle and the vibration goes away and the motor comes to life. 8500rpm and it’s music but I’m already passing the posted speed and have to let off. I decided it was time to head over to the expressway to open it up a bit. We roll up to 70mph quite easily and I take the next exit off.

I went home to meet a co-worker that was giving us his son’s old bed for Gabriel. After Gabriel went to bed, I decided to go out again while the weather was still cooperating (they are talking snow tomorrow). I head south toward some curves a couple miles from the house. Then head on down county line road and follow it around to south of Coweta. I had some gloves and a turtleneck on this time and it wasn’t too bad (mid-40′s when I started). I get into the hills with the creek bottoms and it’s freezing in the valleys. It’s the burning cold going down and actually feels warm coming up the hills. I head through town and north on the highway. That wind is finally starting to get to me on the open highway at 55-60mph.

Finally time to roll into the garage and thaw out. It’s been a fun evening and I can’t wait for it to warm up properly. Now it’s time to see what the bike needs next. Perhaps heated grips? heheh