Paris Arkansas
This past weekend was one of those rare perfect weekends. The weather was about as perfect as it could get and I had a 3 day rally in the heart of Arkansas based out of the little town of Paris. Well actually I had to work a 1/2 day but this rally was only about 250 miles away so it was about a 4 hour run. Most of my route was going to be either interstate or 2 lane straight roads so I took the interstate down and the 2 lane back home on Sunday. Great thing about this was that meant on Saturday I was going to get to ride the twisties of Arkansas all day long.
This is one of the MSTA’s smaller rallies due to the fact that Paris only has one hotel. However we take it over and it’s a nice size group to hang out and get to know the other riders. We had a great cookout in the parking lot and kicked tires until late into the night.
Saturday morning dawned sunny and clear with just a slight chill that promised to become a beautiful warm day with a high of 81 and little wind. Even with only 30 riders we broke into different groups depending upon riding styles and choice of route. I had put together a short, medium and long route out to our lunch stop. Our group chose the medium loop which was around 140 miles. While we ended up being a pretty big group 16 total on 15 bikes with 5 of the 6 ladies on their own bikes. After running the south 1/2 of 123 we take a break at Hankins Country Store and the Blue Mountain Deli which while closed on Saturday still makes a great place to stop.
Break at Blue Mountain Deli.
Then it was on east on 16, 27, 333 and a couple of other roads to our lunch stop which was on the Buffalo river and was aptly named Tater Bugs on the River. A group that could not make the entire weekend had ridden down for lunch from St. Louis and a couple of the other groups from our rally showed up also. We all take different routes but always end up at lunch about the same times.
Lunch at Tater Bugs on The River in Gilbert Arkansas
After lunch we decided to do a variance of one of the routes so that we could do the fun part of 123 from Mt. Judea south with it’s cimbing switchbacks. Going back we broke into 2 smaller groups so that the faster guys could go play and the rest of us could just enjoy the ride. Their route apparently was a little different than ours as they passed us about 10 miles from the hotel.
After a beautiful day with great weather, no LEO’s and no incidents we had logged about 260 miles of twisties. So it was time for the banquet and more tire kicking in the parking lot.
The overlook on Mount Magazine
After a short ride south to go over Mt. Magazine to a local cafe for breakfast and then back over for the fun of it the time had come to point the bike west and head for home. I will admit that I had a few sprinkles before I got home but not enough to hardly notice. At some point on the way home my bike turned over 178k and I’m around 16k for the year.
I’m hoping to do a larger MSTA rally the weekend of Halloween down in the Texas Hill Country but that one will depend upon the weather since it is right at 500 miles down.
