TAT Report 2010-Day 5 August 13-2010

After leaving Sam's at about 7 this morning, we traveled North on US51 to Batesville, AR, where we gassed up, and found the local Cracker Barrel for breakfast.


We left the Cracker Barrel about 8:30AM, and returned to the "Trail", where we left off yesterday. We started with a few gravel roads, then to some winding county paved roads. We passed "Choctaw Ridge", and crossed over the Tallahatchie River....(You have to start hearing Bobbie Gentry singing "Ode to Billie Joe" when you drive by the place that she wrote about).

It's another HOT day as we pass acres and acres of soy beams, cotton, and rice. The three main crops of this area. The roads by mid morning were turning to more sand than gravel. The sand is hard packed, but on the roads that haven't been regraded recently, the ruts caused by pickup trucks during the last rains, are 4 to 8" deep.You have to watch very closely, or you can get thrown like a bucking horse. It is obvious these roads are no place to be when it rains hard, as the mud would be almost axle deep.

The dust is really hheavy unless you're riding "lead dog". The roads are so dry from lack of rain, the dust is about an inch of powder. All the green vegetation roadside is covered with tan and reddish dust.

Look at the picture to the left. The green, leafy, wild grape vine like plant is KUDZU. It grows everywhere and is very invasive, and totally non-native. Read more about is here  :http://maxshores.com/kudzu/

This is a typical AR gravel road. Loose stone (gravel) pulled from the shoulders by the grader, and spread evenly for your riding enjoyment. Like small marbles on a hard packed surface.

The TAT takes you down some unusual "roads".
Many less traveled.

We are about to get onto a Levee. The huge dirt Levee is built to keep the river from flooding the adjacent lands. The "top" of of the Ledee is a one lane "service road". We rode the Levee for probably 3 miles, until it ended at another highway.

The Levee "service road"

Acres and acres of cotton. This field has just a few
white cottons showing from the bowl. Cotton isn't picked until October. By then, all the green vegetation has turned brown, and the leaves have fallen off. Only thing left are the bowls with the white fluffy cotton sticking out.

Hard to see in this picture, but behind the green plants, is a field of rice. Looks like wheat but its all light green. The edges of these fields all have ditches around them. Miles of ditches that get flooded, and provide water for the rice.Unlike the far East, where rice is still generally picked by hand by wading in the rice paddy, or from a small boat where it is combed off the stalk into the floor of the boat. These huge fields are all picked by machine. Big combines, just like what's used for corn, but with a different cutting head. We saw one working, but I wasn't quick enough with the camera.

Lunch time. We came into a small town on the edge of the White River. Clarendon, AR. I spotted this cafe (White River Cafe), and said why not. The "Buster-Brown" truck was there (UPS), he must know where to eat. We went in, and had a great meal, and great conversation with the locals, who are always interested in where we came from, and where we are going. I didn't of course have desert at lunch, but if you were interested, there were four types of homemade pie, for $1.79 per slice.

By now, it was 99 degrees, and we were pretty dusty and dirty. The heat just punishes you to no end. It was almost 3PM, and there was no way we'd make it to our planned stop for the night. We decided to for go about 20 miles of additional gravel, sand, and dusty roads, and head for Beebe, AR, about 55 miles away.

We checked into the Economy Inn, and jumped into the showers to clean and cool off. This place was not one of the best I've ever stayed in. Within a few minutes I had nick named the owner "CB" (Cheap-Bastard)..
CB has NO hangers in the rooms, NO coffee in the rooms, NO breakfast in the AM, only one chair in the room. The inter net (wireless) did work pretty well, but we had to go get the access code first. Like about 10 didgets long. I've seen simpler pass words to launch an IBM middle.

We walked next door, and had a nice Italian meal...came back, and listened to the loudest air conditioner I've ever heard....all night long. "CB" had told me he had the coffee on in the lobby at 7:30AM, but as of 8AM, it was still empty, the 1st pot having never been made. I did write a "nice" rating report on the inter-net for "CB" and the Economy Inn in Beebe, AK.

STATS : For the day: 231 miles, 40.3 mph avg speed, 7hr 46 min
The average speed was a little higher than usual, as we road the roads to the motel...