Hello again from the road.
We left Russellville, Ar about 12:30 (Chriss's usual departure time) after a nice free breakfast at the Holiday Inn. Our waitress was talking with us as she also was a motorcyclist. Seems her husband is a musician and will be playing in a blue's band in Hot Springs Saturday evening. She invited us to go meet her there and listen to him play. We just may do that. So we exchanged phone #’s and who knows.
After packing up the bike in very cloudy weather we headed down Route 7 towards Hot Springs, Ar. The road is listed on the map as scenic highway, and that turned out to be true, it is very scenic. It was a nice road through a national forest.Occasionally we had a few drops of rain on our windshields but didn't stop to put on our rain gear. So far we haven't had the need to use our rain gear during the whole trip...... lucky us. Did I just jinks us? We made it most of the way and got out of the State Park before the heavens opened up. We got doused with a mighty rain storm. Where did our luck go? Chriss picked up some speed and the Kawasaki"s windshield and faring gave us some protection.
Luck would come back our way. After a little while there was a church on that road in the town of Jessieville with a large overhanging roof over the main front entrance. It was a drive through overhang that provided a wonderful escape from the rain. We parked the bike underneath and sat on the doorstep. We waited about ½ hour until the rain ended. Chriss called his son Christon who is an airline pilot. He asked him if he had time to check the weather radar and give us a briefing and escape route. He said sure, hold on as he was very busy running checklists just before departure. Soon he called back and told us to get out of there ASAP and head south. He said the radar was showing a big hole over us and he thought we might just stay dry going south. We said thanks, looked at the map and saw Hot Springs AR to the south and immediately knew where we were going to go. On we went into Hot Springs about 8 miles up the road. We rode through town and found the Arlington Hotel that our waitress had recommended to us. Now we are in our room and Chriss has set up his own private Chinese Laundry clothes line to dry our clothes. Won’t the maid be proud of us….
Soon it is time to go out exploring the area. Across the street just waiting for us was a nice State Park with a water fall flowing from a hot spring into a shallow pool. People were sitting around the small pool on a stone edge. The water temp was almost too hot to put your hand into. Some people were actually putting arms and hands into pool to rid themselves of aches and pains. They said you will get used to it. We found it to be just too hot. When we left there we went strolling up the street looking for an "out of the way" place to eat. We found a little place on the second floor of an old maim street building. It was called the Exchange Cafe. They were advertizing a special catfish dinner, after that it was off to an ice cream Internet store for dessert. Then back to the hotel Arlington for hopefully a good nights sleep. Since it is supposed to rain tomorrow we plan to be here Saturday night also. We plan to leave on Sunday for parts unknown but definitely in a westerly direction.
We paid to park our bike in the covered parking area attached to the hotel. This helped as we have so much baggage. The hotel is very interesting, we have so many things to do without leaving the property. We will explore again tomorrow on foot.
From Beautiful Hot Springs Arkansas,
Carol & Chriss
We left Russellville, Ar about 12:30 (Chriss's usual departure time) after a nice free breakfast at the Holiday Inn. Our waitress was talking with us as she also was a motorcyclist. Seems her husband is a musician and will be playing in a blue's band in Hot Springs Saturday evening. She invited us to go meet her there and listen to him play. We just may do that. So we exchanged phone #’s and who knows.
After packing up the bike in very cloudy weather we headed down Route 7 towards Hot Springs, Ar. The road is listed on the map as scenic highway, and that turned out to be true, it is very scenic. It was a nice road through a national forest.Occasionally we had a few drops of rain on our windshields but didn't stop to put on our rain gear. So far we haven't had the need to use our rain gear during the whole trip...... lucky us. Did I just jinks us? We made it most of the way and got out of the State Park before the heavens opened up. We got doused with a mighty rain storm. Where did our luck go? Chriss picked up some speed and the Kawasaki"s windshield and faring gave us some protection.
Luck would come back our way. After a little while there was a church on that road in the town of Jessieville with a large overhanging roof over the main front entrance. It was a drive through overhang that provided a wonderful escape from the rain. We parked the bike underneath and sat on the doorstep. We waited about ½ hour until the rain ended. Chriss called his son Christon who is an airline pilot. He asked him if he had time to check the weather radar and give us a briefing and escape route. He said sure, hold on as he was very busy running checklists just before departure. Soon he called back and told us to get out of there ASAP and head south. He said the radar was showing a big hole over us and he thought we might just stay dry going south. We said thanks, looked at the map and saw Hot Springs AR to the south and immediately knew where we were going to go. On we went into Hot Springs about 8 miles up the road. We rode through town and found the Arlington Hotel that our waitress had recommended to us. Now we are in our room and Chriss has set up his own private Chinese Laundry clothes line to dry our clothes. Won’t the maid be proud of us….
Soon it is time to go out exploring the area. Across the street just waiting for us was a nice State Park with a water fall flowing from a hot spring into a shallow pool. People were sitting around the small pool on a stone edge. The water temp was almost too hot to put your hand into. Some people were actually putting arms and hands into pool to rid themselves of aches and pains. They said you will get used to it. We found it to be just too hot. When we left there we went strolling up the street looking for an "out of the way" place to eat. We found a little place on the second floor of an old maim street building. It was called the Exchange Cafe. They were advertizing a special catfish dinner, after that it was off to an ice cream Internet store for dessert. Then back to the hotel Arlington for hopefully a good nights sleep. Since it is supposed to rain tomorrow we plan to be here Saturday night also. We plan to leave on Sunday for parts unknown but definitely in a westerly direction.
We paid to park our bike in the covered parking area attached to the hotel. This helped as we have so much baggage. The hotel is very interesting, we have so many things to do without leaving the property. We will explore again tomorrow on foot.
From Beautiful Hot Springs Arkansas,
Carol & Chriss