Today wasn't supposed to be anything special, just the first leg of a 4-day post rally trek home.
By the time we rolled in to Poplar Bluff, Missouri at 5:00 pm we had 490 unexpectedly spectacular kilometers under our belts.
I'll leave you to check the map on our satellite link (see the right column) for all the details, but here are a few edited highlights.
Eureka Springs
West of Harrison, artsy, cute, lots of nice looking lodges, but busy, narrow streets, and really not the best place to take a fully loaded touring motorcycle. We left town "as if the posse was after us" on US 23 North.
The road less travelled
OK, listen up, if you have yet to travel US 86/160 from just east of Branson to Poplar Bluff Missouri, ADD THIS ROUTE TO YOUR BUCKET LIST RIGHT NOW!
If you enjoy tight twisties that give you a birds eye view of your own exhaust pipe the actual Ozarks are ideal, but I enjoyed 86/160 far more.
86 dances through the Mark Twain National Forest just to the North of the Missouri/Arkansas State line and delivers panoramic views of the Ozarks while swooping around generally wide turns. It also criss-crosses the very beautiful Bull Shoals Lake which you can read more about via the link on the right.
US 86 is an excellent warm up for US160.
Take a break at Beeler's
The food at Beeler's Country Cafe in Taneyville is well worth a brief detour north on US 76.
I don't know how Ivan finds these "hole-in-the-wall" eateries, but he certainly has a knack.
Residential properties in this area tend to be modest (to say the least).
Highway 160 east of Forsyth all the way to Doniphon (157 miles) could easily have been the inspiration for the fairground roller coaster.
A veritable cornucopia of 20, 30, 35, 45 mph bends, laced together with nery a straight stretch in between. On the few occaisions that the road straightened out it became a long run of tummy churning blind summits. Yee ha!
Serious fun from start to finish.
Pole position in Poplar Bluff
After such a spectacular day we figured we deserved to park in style at the Comfort Inn, in Poplar Bluff.
This is our second stay of this trip and it is most definately a T3BA approved accomodation.
Sorry we missed it
By the time we'd decompressed, and thoroughly congratulated Ivan on having skillfully avoided four of the biggest white tailed deer we've ever seen (everything's bigger in America), the 3BA's headed out for supper.
Unfortunately we missed this event, but judging by the state of the sign "a good time was had by all",
Indianapolis tomorrow. Weather from here to there looks good but we have one eye on The Weather Network incase the insanity on the east coast should somehow wend it's way in our direction.
Just like the chap trapped in my GPS, Ivan is regularly "recalculating" based on latest forecasts.
Alas, Interstates await.
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