Motorcycle Diaries: Texas-Arkansas : Day 2 - Being Stupid !

Day 2 – Being Stupid , A day full of events !

Incase you have not read day 1 Blog

Our plan was to go to Mt Magazine and then ride to Jasper and Camp at “Dogwood Springs @ Jasper Resort” . Tent space was available. We got up by 6, by 8:30 we were ready to go completely saddled up all packed. I sat on the bike and tried to start the bike, It didn’t. The battery was dead. I had I switched on the bike to charge the gopro and then forgot to switch it off. So this was the first mistake of the day !

It was July 4th and a Sunday so not much help available. I had no other option than to call the rental service. He asked me to do couple of tricks but motorcycle didn’t start. He said he will try to arrange some one to come and get it fixed.

Meanwhile I called up the resort owner Catty and she said she would come with her husband and help us jump start it. It was so kind of them they arrived in 10-15 mins. By this time I got a call from rental service saying that he has send some one and will come over in half an hour. So I said Catty will wait for him.

He arrived pretty soon. Removed the tank and got the battery up. By this time it was already 11:30, almost lost half of the day. We went back to town, had Brunch, and fueled up. It was 12:30 by then.I set the route in GPS to Mt Magazine and started riding .

Took a break on the way !

After some time GPS tooks us to county road and suddenly there was no pavement. I went some more distance, it was the same conditions. We decided to go for some more distance and see, I didn’t want to go back all the way and take a different route. After some mile the terrain completely changed it was like we were riding inside a forest through a hill. I was quite difficult to handle the bike with a road tire and with a pillion and lot of small boulders.

We kept going, there were no signs of vehicles / people or houses around. I was just praying not to get a puncture. Some sections were steep and so had to be extra careful. I was going only 15-20mph because of road condition. We rode around 10 miles almost same scene. Soon we started seeing houses and farms. As we neared one farm house, I could see two dogs running towards us barking. I was not sure to speed up or to stop to avoid a bite. I deiced to speed up a bit, luckily we escaped with out any dog bite ! The whole issue was I did not set the GPS with the right city name , consider I was using GPS for the first time.

Half a mile ahead we reached the main road. Now again I didn’t knew which way to go, because still I was not able to search Mt Magazine in GPS.I didn’t had real paper map with me, just had print outs of google map routes which I had prepared before the trip. This time I rode towards east and reached Danville. Till then couldn’t find any one to stop by and ask the route. We fueled up from there.

One thing we noticed in the trip is people were so friendly . Every one came by as talked to us. remember when I stopped for fuel and I was not able to operate it on a old station. One lady came out of her car and helped me tank up. There was a Old chap talked to us, he too was a rider. He guides us to get to Mt Magazine. It was already 5:30 by now. We reached Mt Magazine by 6:30. There were Lot of bikers on the way.

The climb up was awesome, some amazing mountain roads. By the time we reached , the visitor info center was closed. We went a looked the camping area, there was a board saying 'campsite full'. We came back to the visitor info parking area. I was thinking to camp somewhere close than to ride further to Jasper which is another 100 + miles. While I was seeing the route in Google maps – a park range officer came on his truck. He asked If we are facing any issues with motorcycle. Because we looked lost and tiered because of the all the drama we had whole day.

I said motorcycle is fine, and asked him if there is any place to camp. To our surprise he was also a biker and we talked for some time about motorcycles. He said he used to ride a lot while he was in college. He advised us not to ride to jasper since finding a place to camp at night will be difficult. He told us the route to over flow camping area in the Mt magazine park itself.

He said he will come over later in the evening and tell us some good routes to ride for next day. We went to overflow area and there were two tents already there , but place seems to be great. We were about to pick our spot, then ranger came back and said he has a place for us in the main camping area itself . Wow awesome !!. We followed him and he showed us the camp site.

He said he will come back after some time with the maps and routes for us. We put up the tent and waited for him, but he didn't show up. Then we thought will go for a short ride to see the places around.

We came back by 8:30. To our surprise he had left a Arkansas Map and some routes which he took print out for us. .
He was very helpful and we didn’t expect that.

By this time we were hungry. Ranger had told us earlier that there is a restaurant in the near by park lodge so we decided to walk there. It was a never ending walk. Lodge was quite far from the camping area. By the time we reached the lodge it was 9:15. We went in happily thinking to have some food. But the lady over there said they close by 9 and are not taking any more people. Damn , what a day we had so far ! Dead battery to taking wrong route to not getting dinner. Luckily we found a vending machine in side the lodge and bought some snacks & drinks and then we walked back.

As we walk back in the dark to the camping area. There are 10-12 cabins on the cliff and all of them having amazing view to the valley , and we talked about coming back and me be stay in those cabin in future. We reached back the capsite and crashed for the day. All in all day with lot of twist and turns ! Tomorrow we head to Jasper and then back to Dallas, almost 600 miles to cover !

To be Continued !
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