DDT (12)
Member
Posts: 4120
Sometimes ya just gotta go...
Winter Springs, FL - Occasionally...
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« on: February 25, 2016, 05:55:13 AM » |
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Tour de Dixie (Part Eight)
I keep a close eye on the weather all the time for obvious reasons, but especially this time of year… Rain was again predicted for just ahead… who’d have thought it, huh…? So, I would definitely need to hang around the ol’ homestead for a few more days this time. Not bad, actually, as I did have a few chores that had been sadly neglected… Plus I needed to see the dentist.
The tooth doctor found a likely source for the cold sensitivity thing and performed a minor procedure. He ‘adjusted my bite’, and that, he figured, would provide the remedy, having found nothing else that might be a problem. That was over a week ago, and so far everything is working out just like he’d predicted! OK, so now on to more pressing matters… Where to go, when to go, what to do…
I already had something in mind, actually, and it didn’t include Texas this time. I am supposed to ride to Big Bend NP next month, so I’m thinking at the moment I’ll let that ride be the ‘Texas’ part of the big southern tour this season. Of course, if some reason to modify that unexpectedly pops up in the meantime, well … you know… Nope, by then I’ll probably have come up with a whole new route strategy anyway, so… I sure do like my planning regime!
While hanging out with Dennis and Mitch the week before, we’d naturally relived some of our previous exploits. Among those fond remembrances was an adventure Mitch and I had undertaken following the Texas Hill Country Ride back in the Fall.
We’d departed Fredericksburg and ridden up to Meers, OK, for a famous ‘Meers Burger’… claimed to be the best hamburger in all of Oklahoma, possibly the entire nation. I’m not qualified to confirm that, I admit, not having eaten all that many sandwiches of that sort within that particular state’s boundaries. However, I can state emphatically and unequivocally that it is indeed the best burger I’ve personally ever had anywhere in Sooner Land… or most other states too, for that matter.
No, I wasn’t going to return to Meers this time, but… After we’d dined on Longhorn burgers at that very interesting place, Mitch and I had ventured on into Arkansas to ride some back roads, including the Talimena Trail, in the Ozark Mountains… A most worthwhile ride that connects Talihina, OK and Mena, AR.
It was Mitch’s first time on the ‘Trail’, but the route was shrouded in dense fog that day, so he didn’t get to enjoy any of the surprisingly fabulous scenery. Nope, just a curvactious ride through the clouds for him… I’m betting he’ll ride that most unexpectedly good biker-friendly road in that area again someday, though…
One fine day in western central Arkansas, Mitch and I stopped in some out of the way place along our route just to take a break… And, we soon discovered we’d stumbled into a tiny café complete with local characters; the sort of folks who didn’t have a full set of teeth between them... my kind of folks, actually.
Honest, unassuming, unpretentious, friendly folks, who have a special zest for life, and a hospitable welcome for strangers. They’re always interesting to talk with, if you can get past their gapping, toothless smiles… strict eye-contact helps a lot, I’ve found.
You suspect things like that might await you inside even before you enter, because of the mud-spattered, dented, mostly primer-colored vintage pick-up trucks with cracked windshields parked outside, and the tobacco juice stains of the concrete walkway… I always look forward to such encounters!
We were too late for breakfast by this time of late morning, but that turned out to be a mixed blessing after all. When we spotted our hostess preparing a ham & cheese mega sandwich… we just had to have one! WOW!!! Sort of a Meers burger-like signature food offering… If the Pony Express ever starts offering internet service there, clever advertising will produce much success, I’m sure, for this future rider friendly ‘destination’.
I’d returned to Arkansas a month or so later to have another one of those delightful and outrageously huge meal constructions; but, alas, I didn’t find the place… I think I must have re-ridden the route we’d planned to ride that day, but not the route we’d actually taken… After having to lay over a day because of rain, I’d given up and abandoned my quest… Another mixed blessing?
It wasn’t until I was headed home from that re-attempt, that I thought I recalled us having changed our plan at our first gas stop after hearing about another road from a biker we happened to meet at that stop… That would, at least, explain why I hadn’t found it on that second ride back out there… and why that subsequent ride hadn’t triggered any recollections or feelings of familiarity.
While reminiscing with my two buds between oysters and sips of brew recently, it had occurred to me that perhaps I’d given up on that amazing Ozark Mountain sandwich too easily… So, I’m now figuring out a route that will allow me to verify the goodness of what we’d experienced, or to determine if it might simply have been a fluke… I’m betting on the former… Of course, I’m also gambling on being able to find the place this time!
The weather looked great for this too! Cold at the moment out there with freezing precip and all… However, it’s forecast to warm up nicely in those parts, and the falling precip is supposed to move on out… It also appears I’ll have a five or six-day window of quite tolerable riding weather to pull this re-attempt off… I’m going for it!
As I wait for the rain to pass through here so I can hit the road again, I find myself once again pondering stuff… I do a lot of that, it appears. I suspect it helps that there still are a couple of unpleasant chores I should tackle, but these mental forays provide just enough grist to be ground to aid a life-long procrastinator into justifying not doing what is needed to be done… Am I alone in this?
Anyway, my ponderings indicated there seems to be a couple of common threads to my travels… food being an obvious one. Do I really ride to eat? I’ve never thought so, but… Re-reading my recent stories, ‘food’, and, more precisely, ‘dining’ jump right out at me! Heck, even the ride out to Big Bend N.P. next month will eventually culminate with a swing by Hotglue’s for his annual GOTF BBQ extravaganza!
Personally, I’m inclined to think it is more of an excuse for a ride than it is a core purpose… Hmmm… I’ll have to ponder on this some more… In the meantime, I’ll just keep in the back of my mind a mental picture of that upcoming grilled ham & cheese sandwich!
Not really… I love to ride, and I love to travel. Riding for me has never been only about simply operating a two wheeled vehicle, although I do very much enjoy that. Nope, for me it is, and was from the start, more about seeing what might lie over the next rise or around the next bend in the road. Discovering the wonders of our land and learning about folks in other areas… and doing so in a fun, exhilarating fashion!
In a truly short amount of time, I learned that the journey was really about self-discovery more than anything else… and I became hopelessly addicted virtually from the beginning. I suppose this might partially explain why I prefer to ride ‘easy’ allowing my mind to ponder stuff, instead of riding aggressively, focused almost entirely on the immediate physical activity while seeking an adrenaline aided rush. Nothing at all wrong with either choice, but mine is important to me.
DDT
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