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Loop from Harrison AR
Tues Oct 8, 2024
(~204 miles)

Our first day ride in the Ozarks would be focused around visiting a large botanical garden in the nearby city of Springdale. As documented previously in these pages, Char likes to look at plants and flowers ‘n stuff. Once she’d identified a location of interest to her, I put together a route to the west of Harrison that would hopefully be scenic and interesting, on the way to sniff some flowers. We’re in the beautiful Ozarks after all, and it’s all new to us!

The Ozarks. What’s that mean anyway? Essentially, the name refers to the territory in and around the Ozark Mountain ranges/plateau, spanning chunks of Missouri, Arkansas, and a bit of Oklahoma. The word itself is thought to be a bastardization of a French phrase meaning something like “to the Arkansas”, meaning either the name given to the local Quapaw tribe or to an early European settlement established in the area, called Arkansas Post.

While not particularly high in elevation when compared with the taller Rockies, Smokies, or even White Mountains, the Ozarks comprise a crinkled topography of hills and valleys that offer marked relief from the flat plains of the central US. They contain the highest point in the country between the Appalachians and Rockies at just over 2700 feet (Mount Magazine). Heavily wooded and home to many rivers and lakes, with millions of National Forest acres, the Ozarks have long drawn people both to scratch out a living, and to enjoy recreating in the great outdoors.

We spent a lazy morning around the AirBnb, making breakfast and hashing out loose plans for the next few days. It was a nice chance to catch our breath a little, since we’re staying in one spot and don’t have to worry about packing up to get back on the road. I made a conscious effort to allow myself to relax and not feel the pull of any clock. Vacation!

A minor leak under the kitchen sink provided a bit of drama while we puttered around. I was able to isolate the source and shut off the flow, with a catch container underneath when we needed to use the sink. We fired off a message to the host, who answered promptly that they’d have someone come by to fix it as soon as possible. No problem, we’ll be out riding all day anyway!

It was about 10:00 when we finally got moving, stopping to fill the fuel tank at a nearby Shell station before skirting west around Harrison’s busy commercial district via AR routes 392 and 980. Temperatures were in the high 50s and very comfortable starting out, with bright fair skies. We followed US 412 west for a few miles to the smaller town of Alpena, where we spotted our first drive-thru liquor store. Yup, we in the south now!

There was an interesting little block of old one-story storefronts that looked to have current businesses still occupying them. Nice to see that in these small towns rather than the all-too-common boarded up dusty facades of failed/failing population centers seen too often along my blue highway travels.

412 turns to the southwest here and we stuck with it, rolling on through hayfields, pastures, and wooded hills. This road seems to be a main artery for this area, so the scenery was a mixed bag, with a bit more traffic and commercial properties regularly interrupting the scenic views. But we took enjoyment from seeing the unfamiliar landscape unfold before us. Skimming past the town of Huntsville, we exited at Hindsville to head north on AR routes 45 and 12, which was much prettier and curvier two-lane through some forest. Finally got to lean the bike over a bit through these lovely green woodlands, calling out occasional splashes of early autumn color to each other.

We banged a left onto CR 98 for a couple miles to reach our first stop of the day, War Eagle Mill. This is an historic (and still functioning!) grist mill situated along War Eagle Creek in the rural countryside just south of Hobbs State Park. Views of the old mill building and adjacent steel truss bridge are lovely to behold across the nearby fields on the approach, and from just about any angle.

A huge waterwheel was in operation when we walked around to the creek side of the building, though it slowly ground to a halt as we watched, fascinated with this functional innovation from a past era. (see video below)

Aside from containing a small number of displayed antique artifacts and a gift shop, the mill also hosts a café on the third floor (lots of stairs!). My plan had been to grab either an early lunch or maybe just some coffee and pie. However, they weren’t quite ready for customers and were working with a limited menu today. They had cobbler, no pie, and weren’t inclined to make us coffee upon request (!), so we turned back down the stairs and continued to browse a bit longer.

The mill machinery was all exposed for display at the rear of the first floor showroom, and was in the process of being repaired, explaining the erratic operation of the water wheel outside. A repairman was here working on the apparatus alongside one of the owners (?) so we got to observe them at their work, testing it by pulling a big lever to engage the gearing from the huge spinning water wheel  to the shaft that turns the grindstones, resulting in a small cascade of cornmeal into a plastic bin on the floor. Pretty neat!

When we’d had our fill of the mill, we figured we had to at least ride across the 117 year old single-lane bridge before backtracking to route 12. Just like with covered bridges, you have to ride across for it to count! We geared back up in the heat and enjoyed a quick scoot across the creek and back. There’s a historical marker on the opposite bank at a nice vantage point to observe at the bridge and mill together, over the waters of the creek.

The next few miles on AR 12 were super fun and twisty, taking us the rest of the way through Hobbs State Park. We crossed a short scenic causeway over Beaver Lake, noting several tall rocky bluffs along the shoreline of the man-made reservoir.

After the lake, we veered left onto CR 1440 for another fun few miles before finally emerging into the denser civilization around Rogers. This town is part of a heavily populated urban “strip” of cities along I-49 in northwestern Arkansas, forming a large metropolitan area. Picking our way down the eastern edge of it all on a few county and local roads, we minimized our exposure to the busiest areas and shortly found ourselves in the next city in line, Springdale.

Our first attempt for pie had struck out at the mill, but I had backup plans and backup backup plans! With a Google search for “pie in Arkansas” I’d turned up a classic little local establishment called Neal’s Café, apparently well-known for their sky-high merengue and cream pies.

It looks like they churn out some good quality homestyle diner food as well, but I wasn’t quite ready for a full lunch yet, ordering just a piece of coconut cream pie. Char followed my lead and got a slice of lemon merengue. The pie was astounding to look at and lovely to eat. It felt relaxing to have this short respite from the warm day in the aircon, sipping cold drinks with our snack and watching the local patrons come and go – the place was packed pretty good.

From Neal’s, it was just a couple miles to our primary destination for today, the Botanical Garden of the Ozarks. As we were not sure how big this place is, we figured on staying a couple hours and used their restrooms to change from our riding gear into shorts and shoes to be more comfortable strolling around in the heat.

The friendly people at the admission counter (there’s a small fee for out of state visitors) warned us that the area had been undergoing a drought recently, so not to expect the gardens to be at their best. We did notice a lot of dry ground and areas under restoration, but overall they seemed to be doing a pretty good job of keeping things alive.

Overall, the the BGO offers some lovely gardens to stroll through, with a local community feel. We liked that they had the Halloween scarecrow decoration contest going on – some of the entries were pretty amusing, with a lot of obvious effort put in! It was pretty easy to walk around the place and not too much to take in within a single visit. Being a weekday, we only encountered  a few other visitors and had it mostly to ourselves and the folks tending the plants.

Plenty more garden photos, including more amusing scarecrows, are in the gallery linked at the end of this post.

After we’d completed our circuit of the footpaths, we changed back into our gear and re-filled our water bottles inside the visitor center. We got east out of Springdale quickly, via more county roads and AR 45 through Goshen, then made our way south to AR 74. This is a long west-east route through the Ozarks with lots of great riding sections. Several miles of flat straights towards Huntsville would gradually gave way to curves in wooded surroundings as we headed back east into the hills and forests.

Shortly, we were back in Huntsville and went through the middle of it this time.  I’d waypointed a restaurant popular with riders called Granny’s Kitchen as a spot to finally get some late lunch (or early dinner as it was already 15:30) and maybe some more pie! The parking lot was empty but the door was open, so we walked in to find a seat. The nice lady working hard at cleanup duly informed us that Granny’s closes at 14:30 during the week. Alas! I hadn’t properly done my research. 😟 Maybe next time.

Char and I were feeling quite peckish by now and getting a bit grumpy. Time for Plan C. Uh what Plan C? Well, on our way through town, we’d noticed a little taco shack and commented that Mexican sounded pretty tasty right now. After checking the reviews, which seemed quite positive, our problem was solved!

We headed back around the corner and pulled up at Faby’s Taqueria, where we had a fantastic freshly cooked meal, washed down with a sweet Mexican Coca-Cola (for me). Char got a burrito while I opted for a trio of different tacos. These were proper size tacos nicely stuffed with meat, just the right amount of food. Delicious! Even had room to share some fried ice cream afterwards. Why not? Vacation.

Leaving south out of Huntsville, we stayed on 74 as it curved back eastward, taking in the pastures stretched over sparsely populated valley floors between the rolling wooded hillsides.

We passed by sleepy dry streambeds and cattle grazing, until finally descending a bit into the huge valley occupied in large part by the Buffalo National River Wilderness area. There are also still some ranches with plenty more cattle to be seen grazing in the wide open fields.

There are wild elk also roaming this valley, and I’d done my research in advance regarding the best places to spot them. Golden hour was prime time and we were in the prime location. Sure enough, as we cruised slowly along  some open fields to our right with the river just beyond the distant trees, we spotted some lighter tan-colored shapes that didn’t look like the cattle we’d been spotting.

There were already a few cars pulled to the shoulder, with folks standing on the field’s edge with binocs and cameras. We squeezed the bike in near them, turning off the engine so we could watch what turned out to be a couple families of elk emerge from the tree line to graze and frolic a bit, as dusk came upon us.

After that nice wildlife encounter, the riding on route 74 got super fun and curvy for the next 15 miles (crooked & steep!) as we twisted our way up and out of the valley and heading east through more hills.

We hit AR 7 back in Jasper and got to re-ride the fun curves on that fine road back up north and across the flats by setting sun to Harrison, where our little house awaits. Great first loop ride in the Ozarks!

Off the bike for the evening by around 20:30, we snacked a bit, watched some Netflix, and worked on a plan for tomorrow’s ride. It’s shaping up to be quite a bit longer and twistier than today’s excursion and would be focused on the riding (and more pie).

More photos of today’s adventure.