More riding, this time in Arkansas

Let's be frank: Arkansas is really not the greatest place to ride a bike in the summer! Holy cow, Missouri was like a hamam, and Arkansas was not one iota drier or cooler, just about 1,000 ft lower in elevation (and thus even closer to the molten core of the Earth). But is it scenic and cycling friendly? Well, you bet! And as they say: What doesn't kill you just makes you stronger.

After checking out of my condo in Branson West I embarked on a beautiful drive through the Ozark and Ouachita mountains, heading south toward Hot Springs. The Beemer loved the curvy mountain roads, and so did I. What a great road tripper the Z4 is! Just don't bring a passenger, but two bikes, a Dutch oven, and a pizza stone are OK. Along the way I stopped by Arkansas' own "Grand Canyon" and the hydroelectric works on the Arkansas River near Dardanelle.

My condo was located in one of the weirdest communities I've ever been to: Hot Springs Village. Most people are familiar with the concept of the gated community, a generally small neighborhood that features controlled access that's available only to its residents and their guests. Such gated communities may be as large as a square mile, with maybe a hundred houses. Now imagine an entry-controlled incorporated "village" with more than 14,000 residents (of whom 98% are white, BTW) that encompasses a total area of almost 56 (!!!) square miles (which comes to 144 square kilometers). Check the Wikipedia entry for HSV and you will learn that it was established just about 50 years ago and is a totally planned community. There are eleven recreational lakes (think mainly boating) with three beaches, nine golf courses, a few fire stations, quite a number of churches, a couple of gas stations (those boats have to be filled up occasionally), and a few services such as a liquor store, a CBD shop, and a few other odds and ends.

To go grocery shopping you will leave through one of the various access gates (for visitors only two are staffed with live people, at the west and east end; a few other code-controlled gates exist in other places to cross the fence line), and most other services such as banks and physicians' offices are outside as well. From the west to the east gate takes a good 20 to 25 minutes of driving--15 miles at 45 mph take a while. That was the bubble in which I lived for a week. And actually, I kinda liked it, enough to look at housing prices and crime rates (about a quarter of the outside world for the latter). Thanks to Google I can tell you that of the 501 miles of roads in HSV, 472 are paved--and they are paved nicely, many of them with a clean shoulder marked for bikes. In other words, I could have stayed in the village for two weeks and could have ridden all the roads had I gone at the same rate as what I did during my one-week stay (245 miles total). As I said, quite an unusual place.

I lucked out in that my condo had a nice deck that overlooked Lake Desoto, one of the aforementioned eleven bodies of water at HSV. Even if it was a view through the trees, I could see the occasional pontoon Sunseeker motor by. The deck was equipped with an electrical grill (one of those George Foreman-promoted devices that you see on late-night TV), and after I had moved some living room furniture to the outside I had a really nice dining space in the open. Of all the four condos that I have had over these past few months, this one was my favorite, even if it was "just" a two-bedroom unit. Sorry, bikes, no private chambers for you.

My daily routine didn't differ much from the one that I had perfected over time during these roadtrips: wake up when the body thought it was time to do so; enjoy coffee, cookies, and the newspaper out on the deck; leave for my ride around 10:00 or 10:30; get back and enjoy a light lunch; pack up two beers in my small cooler and drive a couple of miles to the Desoto beach where I'd swim, read, and obviously inhale those beers; drive back to the condo and start the food preparations while having a Happy Hour glass of wine, or two; and let the evening segue into night on my porch, listening to the frogs and birds in the surrounding forest. Damn, that's living!

I tried to embark on as many rides as possible from the condo, and it was only on one day that I drove the car down to the historic town of Hot Springs (maybe 15 miles away) to extend my range to an area of the Ouachita mountains that otherwise I wouldn't have been able to explore. For two of my rides I decided to take the gravel bike since I had mapped out routes that stood a good chance of including unpaved roads that would have made the dedicated road bike impracticable. Good choice, since both rides provided me with some adventure away from cars, in the middle of nowhere. The first one involved only about 10 miles of gravel, but thanks to a washed-out bridge (it probably had vanished decades ago) it necessitated some serious hike-a-bike through a wonderfully refreshing stream. It was also the ride during which I almost rolled over a venomous Western Pygmy rattlesnake. (I didn't identify the snake until later when I compared my photos to images found on the internet, and a dedicated Facebook group verified my correct ID.)

The other gravel ride took me north of HSV to Ouachita National Forest. Part of that ride traversed some rather sketchy-looking areas of trailer homes and featured some spooky characters staring at me. Twice I heard nearby shots that made me wonder whether it really was such a good idea to be out there, all by myself. But it was a superb ride, and I gorged myself on early blackberries and enjoyed amazing vistas from some of the higher spots. And maybe the best part was skinny dipping in a perfect waterhole fairly close back to the village.

Riding, just like in Missouri, was tough. Heat, humidity, hills--all three combined to really sap my energy. I always took extra bottles of water along and carefully listened to my body. No sense in attempting heroic efforts to maintain a "better looking" average speed for Strava. It didn't take long for me to be soaking wet with sweat, and only shaded downhill sections would provide some relief from the relentless tropical greenhouse environment. With the exception of a few relatively short stretches where I had no other routing options I was able to avoid being around traffic, choosing tiny roads that, nevertheless, were generally well paved. During my two weeks in MO and AR I didn't suffer a single flat or mechanical problem (actually, the same was true for my TX and NM trips). Both bikes performed flawlessly, my gear choices had been spot-on, and the Tailfin AeroPack allowed me to carry extra food and water plus spares and my wallet without having to weigh down my jersey pockets.

One aspect of cycling in the area was, however, a bit annoying. I experienced this problem on the day when I struck out from Hot Springs in a southwesterly direction. HSV is not the only gated community in that part of the world, and unfortunately maps do not indicate whether a road is closed off to non-resident travel. I talked to one of the locals about this, and he told me that unless one knows the area one stands a good chance to come across a closed gate. So, I had to modify my route several times that day, hoping that the new route wouldn't be a dead-end again. Since my Locus mapping program relies on open source info, there really wasn't much that could be done. And even in the backcountry there were gates that indicated hunting leases; when they were closed I didn't duck under them, remembering those shots fired....

The loop south-west of Hot Springs ended up in the only brewpub in the US that's located within a National Park. Superior Bathhouse Brewery is located in one of eight historic bathhouses that line the main drag of Hot Springs. The beer was really good, even if I had to drink it out of a plastic cup thanks to COVID-19. The brewery uses the geothermally heated water that not only gives the town its name but was the reason for its fame as a medicinal spa and resort. Several old, art deco hotels remind you that the town has been a tourist spot for quite a while, even if Josephine Tussaud's Wax Museum and Duck Tours in amphibious vehicles probably attract more visitor nowadays than the healing waters. (Thanks to the ever-ready Google I learned that ol' Josephine was the great-great-granddaughter of the Madame Tussaud of worldwide wax fame.)

So, once again I had chosen a good spot for a cycling vacation. As you can see from this map, I got a chance to see a large swath of this beautiful part of the world.

Before I knew it, it was time to pack up once again and load the Beemer. Since it's a pretty long haul from Arkansas back home I had contacted my friend Keith who lives in Ft. Worth, and he and Cindy hosted me Sunday night in their elegant home. Just like on the way out to Missouri when I had stayed with Terry in OKC, connecting with old friends was a special treat and a nice way to bookend my driving vacation. And so, after 1,812 miles I finally rolled back into Lubbock this past Monday. Sure, it's hot here, but without humidity one doesn't really feel it--at least not the way I did for those two weeks in MO and AR.

Time to go back to the drawing board and find some other destination. Unfortunately, Texas (and many other states) have seen a dramatic resurgence of COVID-19 infections over the past week, and who knows whether my current plans for mid-July will pan out.

Jürgen

Heat and humidity in Missouri

My two one-week condo rentals in the Texas Hill Country and New Mexico were so much fun that I decided to research other timeshare options in these times of no airplane travel. In general I bitch about RCI timeshare points being very difficult to use, at least for me, since in general it is necessary to make reservations many months in advance to secure a vacation exchange. But if there is one positive spin-off of COVID-19 (and that's really by a very far stretch) then it is empty vacation resorts that are just now starting to fill up again.

With numerous potential condos available in southern Missouri and north-eastern Arkansas I decided to pay my next visit to that region. So, after more or less two weeks at home I once again packed up the Beemer and headed out of town. My first stop was going to be in Oklahoma City, where my old friend Terry lives. Back in the days when we raced bicycles numerous members of the Chaparrals would be welcomed by him and his now-ex wife to their big place where we'd stay for the long OKC Classic weekend. Over the years, Terry and I would run into each other at races, and just last fall he had stopped over at my place on the way to Cloudcroft.

OKC is just the perfect driving distance away for one hot day. After a good shower, a nice evening talking, and a good night's rest I was ready on Sunday morning to put in the second day of driving. East I went through Oklahoma, entered Arkansas near Ft. Smith, swung north to Fayetteville (another place where I used to race, the Joe Martin Memorial), and shortly thereafter crossed into Missouri. It was a beautiful drive through the Ozarks, and I got my first taste of the humidity with which I have been living for the past ten days.

Before long I found myself on small, curvy, semi-deserted byways that eventually took me to Branson West, where my vacation home was located at Stonebridge Village, just a few miles outside of town. I had a spacious and fully equipped two-bedroom condo, with a nice porch looking upon the adjacent forest. That was my home base for the next week. Very, very nice!

My days all were quite similar in that I'd wake up when the body was ready (usually by seven), make coffee and bake a few fresh cookies, read the daily newspapers (on my tablet, of course), go for a bike ride, come back hours later, have a late lunch, pack a few beers into my small cooler, head down to the swimming pool (which required a 2-mile drive up and down the extremely hilly Stonebridge Village terrain), continue to recover from my ride, head back to the condo, and--over Happy Hour--start to prepare my dinner. Easy living!

With the exception of the Wednesday after my arrival, when the remnants of tropical storm Cristobal dropped the temperatures and brought very high winds, I went for daily rides, varying in length from around 35 miles to a little more than 50. About half of my rides I started straight from the condo, and for the others I loaded one of my two bikes on the rack and would drive for a few miles to start. In this way I was able to see a larger variety of the region as Branson West has limited access to safe cycling roads. My first ride took me to the actual Branson, about 10 miles away on a busy and steep road; the cycling really wasn't all that great and I learned to pick better routes.

Honestly, I wouldn't want to come here in "normal" times when the place must be just exploding with tourists. But with the pandemic having done and continuing to do its damage, the volume of traffic was just manageable. Branson was kinda deserted, and billboards for Dolly Parton's Intimate Dinner Experience and a Night With Elvis were just empty promises. Just as Las Vegas attracts those who like to gamble and seek live entertainment, Branson attracts a similar crowd of older folks and families who like to boat and eat and go to some amusement park. I had just come for the cycling.

The riding was not easy. On most rides I would gain around 3,000 feet of elevation, but that really doesn't tell the whole story. That is a respectable figure, but it doesn't tell how steep some of these climbs are and how hot and humid it is. (BTW, the actual elevation of this area ranges from about 1,000 to 2,000 feet.) Just a few minutes after starting my ride I'd be fully soaked, even though I always started relatively early. My kit felt as if I had just taken it out of the washing machine, without having used the spin cycle. The air was stagnant, and the downhill sections didn't give much relief because one never knew what lay beyond the next turn, where a shoulder might suddenly disappear, or whether one of the many bridges had an abrupt lip.

My average speed was pathetically slow, according to my Strava data. But this was not about speed but rather about taking in the natural beauty of this part of the world. Hills, forests, small streams, bucolic valleys, tiny towns. Although I rode the gravel bike on a few occasions there wasn't much off-road action. So, most of the time I rode the road bike, and since most of the roads are well paved (smooth asphalt, no chip-and-seal) that choice worked out well. I used my tailfin rear rack with a small bag in which I carried spare water and a sandwich (or left-over pizza), and with my Locus app I simply followed the route that I had mapped out the night before. Sometimes I made adjustments on the fly--what a great program, as it allows me to do all that offline.

One day I drove the car to the small town of Ozark and parked in front of the local brew-pub. I asked the owners for permission to do so and told them I'd be back in the afternoon for a beer. Like everybody else that I met on this trip they were friendly folks and wished me a nice day. From Ozark I rode north, to Springfield. The terrain here is much less hilly but still gently undulating, and it's just as muggy, of course. Objective of the day's ride (which came to 52 miles) was to visit various micro-breweries and brew-pubs, of which Springfield has quite a few. I ended up with a total of seven, including the one where I was parked.

Springfield really impressed me. It has facilities for cyclists, there are lots of parks and recreational facilities, the downtown area (surrounding the university) appears to be vibrant with small shops and many local restaurants, the housing prices are affordable, and it has commercial jet service with American and Delta. Of course, it's hot and humid in the summer, and the winters, according to the folks I talked to, can be rather grey and icy. Nevertheless, I really liked the vibe that Springfield still exuded even with everything ramped down thanks to the virus.

On the one day that was much too blustery for a bike ride I went for a hike instead. Located just four or five miles down the road from Stonebridge Village, toward Branson, is a large nature conservation area that has various hiking trails. The Ruth and Paul Henning Conservation Area encompasses an interesting type of terrain that I had never heard about: glades. These hill-top areas are defined by very thin soils that make it impossible for trees to grow, making for a harsh environment for plants and animals alike. Obviously, when you have hills you also have to have valleys in between, and they are forested and have small brooks and streams. The trails are easy and not technical, and at a little over six miles one doesn't have to worry about whether one is going to make it. Thanks to the cooler temperatures (I think we hit only 75 degrees) and the wind that was just a gentle breeze among the trees it turned out to be a delightful day.

The week in Missouri went by fairly quickly, and I enjoyed all aspects of it. For less than $35 a day I had a very nice place to stay and use as a homebase for memorable excursion. I had to use only 6,500 of my annual 20,000 point allotment, leaving plenty of points over for more vacations (the $$$ amount is for the so-called "exchange fee" that RCI charges to use one's points); I still haven't even used all of my saved 2019 points. In other words: More trips are on the horizon. Stay tuned!

Jürgen