58miles (1101 cumulative)
I was in the clouds this morning, and could barely see ten feet in front of me coming off the mountain. There were so many sharp turns, it was hard to get any speed and it honestly wasn't the joy ride I was hoping for until the end when it straitened out. I met my first touring cyclist today. His name was Charles Taylor like the bloody Liberian dictator or my favorite shoe, and he was bicycling from Seattle (funny, that's where I'm headed) to Key West. 5000 miles so far, only 1200 to go. He said total in his life he'd done about 17 thousand something. I'd never stopped to figure that out for myself.
October 13th
Day 20 - Conway to Mt. Nebo, Arkansas
66 Miles (1043) - 1350'
Somewhere today I reached the 1000 mile mark, which is about the one third mark and I'm just about three weeks into this. I also did a few extra miles around Lake Dardanelle just for the fun of it. I was feeling pretty good, so I decided to climb up Mount Nebo to camp for the night. Oooh boy, what a climb. I started at 200' and climbed up to 1350 over 6 miles, it was steep. These are the Ozarks, they just shoot up out of the valley floor.
Sunday, October 12th
Saturday, October 11th
I was in the clouds this morning, and could barely see ten feet in front of me coming off the mountain. There were so many sharp turns, it was hard to get any speed and it honestly wasn't the joy ride I was hoping for until the end when it straitened out. I met my first touring cyclist today. His name was Charles Taylor like the bloody Liberian dictator or my favorite shoe, and he was bicycling from Seattle (funny, that's where I'm headed) to Key West. 5000 miles so far, only 1200 to go. He said total in his life he'd done about 17 thousand something. I'd never stopped to figure that out for myself.
October 13th
Day 20 - Conway to Mt. Nebo, Arkansas
66 Miles (1043) - 1350'
Somewhere today I reached the 1000 mile mark, which is about the one third mark and I'm just about three weeks into this. I also did a few extra miles around Lake Dardanelle just for the fun of it. I was feeling pretty good, so I decided to climb up Mount Nebo to camp for the night. Oooh boy, what a climb. I started at 200' and climbed up to 1350 over 6 miles, it was steep. These are the Ozarks, they just shoot up out of the valley floor.
Sunday, October 12th
Day 19 - Augusta to Conway, AR
77 miles (977)
I woke up to two guys shouting about having locked the keys in the truck. A coupla good ole boys were fixin to go fishin, had backed the boat down the ramp part way (I don't know why they stopped part way) and now were stuck waiting for one their wives to bring them the spare keys. I didn't feel so hot today, but got into Conway in descent time and made my way to my first warm showers network connection. For those unaware, the warm showers network is an online data base of bicycle friendly people willing to let a stinky biek traveler use their shower and couch for the night. Drew is a student at Hendrix College, a gear head, and an all around nice and interesting guy. I spotted the house right away because of the thirty or so bike frames piled in the back. When there was no answer at the door, I called him on his cell, and he came around the corner in a green jump suit on a bike with no brakes. He said he used to run a bike collective out of the garage, but had to move it out into the yard because they threw a party at the house. It was pretty awesome to be staying with a bunch of college dudes. They were so geeked about what they were studying and fascinated with all sorts of different things, and all of the 5 - 15 people living in there were totally unphased by the presence of a stranger in the house. Drew was creating his own major called appropriate technologies or sustainable developement and was busy working on a paper on gobalization and intertransmodification, or something like that, involving NAFTA. It was all really interesting. College.
Saturday, October 11th
Day 18 - West Memphis to Augusta, Arkanasas
80 miles (900) - 13.2 average (fastest so far)
Kevin and I loaded up the bike and gear into his pick-up and he drove me across the mighty Mississippi. There really wasn;t any other option coming out of Memphis. Eastern Arkansas is very flat and I rocketed through all these little delta towns. I found a little boat launch in Augusta and asked around about camping there. Nobody said no, so I set up camp and cookled some dinner.
I saw a wedding going on in town and noticed a HUGE tractor park out front of the church with a "Just Married" sign on the back and big drums strapped on. I went back to take a picture, but unfortunately they had already left. Farm country and mosquitos.
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