There are times that life can be cruel. There are times that life can be great. There are times that life can appear to be cruel but be great in disguise. I’m not sure which it is some of the time, maybe a little of both mixed up in a big brown bag and shaken up into a recipe that culminates in a tasty sensation you weren’t quite expecting. I guess this is why the English language has the word “bitter-sweet”, why the Chinese have Ying-Yang, and ultimately why so many of us like roller coaster rides. You really can’t live life without a little difficulty and you find out you enjoy it more when you have to struggle a bit to achieve that enjoyment.
I will get to my first Arkansas mini motorcycle adventure here in a minute, but first I need to explain exactly how a born and bred Texan got to Arkansas in the first place;
I have worked at the same printing plant for 32 years. The first few days of November 2009, an announcement wasn made that our facility would be closed by December 31, 2009. Without getting into details, it is a volume vs. capacity issue in the printing industry – and its not over yet. Over the next few months, I was offered and accepted a job at our Jonesboro AR division. I went through a lot of stress and angst as whether or not to take the job, whether or not to leave where I have lived my entire life, to leave all of my friends and family. There were financial issues of selling my home, which I had just bought a year earlier, buy a new home in Arkansas, all of those issues. One thing that made it easy was I liked the Jonesboro plant, and the people in the plant and town were some of the friendliest I had ever met. This was literally the toughest decision I have ever made in my life. Especially the part about leaving everything behind and heading to Arkansas by myself, just me and my dog. I don’t have a huge circle of friends, but the ones I do have are close and have helped me more than they are probably aware. So to say the least, my move was bittersweet. I was sad to be leaving, but excited to be heading out on a new life adventure. I left Dallas and arrived in Jonesboro the weekend of March 6th 2010. A transplanted Texas boy in the heart of Northeast Arkansas.
It was my second weekend in Arkansas, I had the bike out around town last weekend, but I needed to get out and put some natural state miles under the tires. My realtor and a couple of others had said that there was little historic town called Hardy AR that was a destination for a lot of the bikers in Jonesboro. So, what would anyone needing information about a destination today do…. I googled it. Google said it was about an hour and a half away, but my GPS said about an hour. GPS was right, BTW. I headed out around noon up hwy 63 towards the northwest. The road was pretty flat and straight for the first 30 miles or so. Lots of Harley riders in these parts, I guess they are okay with that, but I was starting to think it was going to be a boring ride. Then I hit a little town called Black Rock, just past the Spring River. Finally there was some topography getting into the act and the road started winding a bit. One thing I have to say about this part of the country. They do have trees; even the flat lands have grand stands of tall trees and forests. A lot of them have been cut back for Uncle Ben and his rice farming ventures, but they are there and they are plentiful. The tress started to line the sides of the road more prevalent as I made my way northwest of Black Rock. It reminded me a little of Colorado, well maybe the foothills. The countryside was dotted with a lot of the same roadside junkyards guised as antique shops – American Pickers would have a field day in some of these spots. Being winter yet, there wasn’t any foliage on the tress yet, but I could only image what this ride will be like in a month or two. What amazed me was all of the river access roads to the Spring River. Each of the little towns had its own public access road to the river. I think I will need to get a little boat, canoe, or kayak.
When I was first considering moving to this area, someone told me that Jonesboro had a lot of industry move in and that it had lost a lot of the small town charm some of the other towns in the area had. I saw a lot of that character in the towns I rode through on the way to Hardy. Most of the towns only had populations between 500 and 2,000, so the charm was definitely there. Little post offices, churches, and grocery stores. I did not stop in any of them on this trip, but will probably do so the next time I go, after the trees sprout some leaves and everything is a little more picturesque, this trip I mainly wanted to ride. The road started winding a little more the closer I got to Hardy, but not to the point I would call it a twisty. Maybe if I rode it a little faster, but Johnny Law was making his presence evident quite a bit this Saturday afternoon so I kept it to within 10-15MPH of the legal limit. It will be interesting to see if I can find an alternate route to Hardy other then just straight up hwy 63, something that may take a little longer to get there, but something that may add a little more interest to the tarmac. The scenery was great though, even with barren trees, rolling winding roads on a main thoroughfare is something that is just not an every day occurrence that I am used to and it was quite welcome.
I arrived in Hardy right around 1PM, just behind a blue Goldwing. We both parked next to each other, and the first thing they did was look to see where I was from. “Texas?” they said. I told them that I was, but had just move to Jonesboro. We talked for a while and they went into one of the antique shops. Hardy is mostly antique shops, a couple of restaurants and some pretty cool old buildings. I guess their claim to fame is that the Wilburn Brothers were born there. The Wilburn Brothers were famous Country singers from around the 50’s to the 70’s, and are credited for launching the career of Loretta Lynn. I spent a little time walking around the main street of the town, shot a few images, ate lunch and then headed back towards Jonesboro around 2PM.
On the way back I took advantage of heading down a couple of the gravel roads I found and some of the river access roads I found on the way up. These will certainly be more interesting once summer gets here, and maybe when I have a little more time. It was partly cloudy and warm, but there was supposed to be rain moving in later in the afternoon/evening and I did not want to get to deep down some dirt road and have it turn to mud on me, so I kept the excursions fairly short. However they were enough that I can tell there will be some fun to be had on the GS. I may just end up getting those knobbies after all. All of the little side trips on the way home added about an hour to my ride home and I got to Jonesboro around 4PM. I then spent a little time riding around the south part of town. Rode by where I bought my new house, and then found where they opened up a new ATV/Motorcycle park just north of Craighead Forest Park. So I now have a place right here in town to ride my dirt bike. I’m not quite sure how big it is yet, but I stopped and talked to some of the guys and they said they thought it was about 7 miles…. Not sure if that meant 7 sq miles, 7 miles of trails, or what….
So that is my first Arkansas adventure. I can already tell that there will be more to come. The sweet part of the bittersweet move is that I will be closer to all kinds of outdoor adventures. On a simple 1-hour ride I can’t tell you how many rivers, streams, creeks and forest access roads I passed. It is just a matter of time before I find out how to get to these and the outdoor fun begins. And those are just the ones in my back yard. An hour or two to the west and I am in the Ozarks, and more adventure and opportunity awaits. So I am going to shake up that brown paper bag and see what kind of recipe for adventure pours out.
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