Lucille:

May 19 - Monday - Today we drove back to Houston to begin the bike ride.  While Tom was getting his bike off the car and getting set to go, we met and had a chat with the town mayor and the minister of the Assembly of God church.  They wished us well, and we took off.  It was a day of zigagging east across rural Arkansas.  We stopped many times today to check our map and be sure that we were both on the right road.  No more straight shots on one highway all day as we experienced in the southwest.  Today we were on these country roads: 60, 286, 89, 107, 5, 321,and 38.  All day we saw lots of green grass, ​neatly trimmed, lots of trees, houses, and churches. I love the smell of the freshly mowed grass.  Speaking of churches, yesterday we saw one with this message on its message board:  Dusty Bibles make dirty lives.  As we passed through Conway, there was road construction, and I was concerned about Tom's ride on the more narrow space, so I stopped at a shopping plaza to wait for him.  I went into a florist shop and had a pleasant time talking to the two very gracious ladies who worked there.  At one point of the ride today we saw and heard several planes from Little Rock Air Force Base.  I'm amazed by the number of turtles I have seen slowly crossing the road.  Many of them don't make it.  At first I thought I was seeing an occasional large rock in the middle of the road.  Then I realized they were dead turtles. Tom biked until about 4:30 and then we packed up the bike in Hickory Plains and drove 35 or so miles to our motel in Brinkley.  

Total Trip Distance: 2189.65

A farm in Arkansas

We saw planes from Little Rock AFB.

We have seen many churches in Arkansas.

TOM:

Day 26 – Houston, AR to Hickory Plains, AR  76 miles. The route was basically flat,  from 315 feet to 250 feet.  Parts of the route had many rolling hills going from 250 feet up to 400 feet.  The rolling hills made the trip a little slower than yesterday.  The average today was 13 mph  instead of the 14.3 mph yesterday.  The route took 5 hours and 49 minutes to cover the 76 miles.  The day started out mostly overcast with just a few dots of blue showing through.  By midday it was mostly blue with clouds. There was much the same scenery today as the last couple of days.  I did get some advice from a frog communications expert and therefore listened more carefully to the many frogs talking to each other today.  The discussion seemed to be about Bud and Bud Lite.  One group of frogs kept saying bud..bud..bud and the other kept saying bd.lte...bd.lte...bd.lte.  Since there are lots of frog ponds and frogs in Arkansas, I am sure the discussion will continue tomorrow. In addition to frogs there is much other wild life in Arkansas as sampled by the road kill and sometimes live critters.  Turtles, taripans, many different types of snakes, opossum, racoons, armadillos, and birds of all kinds are seen along the roadside. The roads are kept very clean and the grass is cut quite often.  I saw several mowing operations today both by the road departments and private citizens.  I saw several dogs today.  Someone asked about dog incidents.  A dog incident is when a dog chases after you on the bike.  I had about 4 dog incidents today.  Only once did I offer a dog biscuit to divert the dog. I find that only about half the dogs are diverted by the biscuits. Today the dog stopped to get the biscuit.  Most of the dogs just seem to like to run along beside you and bark either to protect their territory or just as a welcome, although some dogs look like they want to attack you.  I also saw many "good" dogs.  The good dogs are behind a fence, don't see you until it is too late to chase you, are very slow, live a distance from the road or are controlled by their owner.  I have not been attacked yet and am beginning to feel more comfortable to have the dogs chase me.  But I am still very cautious and prepared for the attackers.  It was a slower day but a great day to bike across the county.

Typical rural Arkansas scene

Day Twenty-Six - 5/19/2003

Houston, AR to Hickory Plains, AR  76 miles. This was a downhill route from 315 feet to 250 feet with many rolling hills 300 and 400 feet high.