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Loop from Harrison AR
Wed Oct 9, 2024
(~324 miles)

Today’s ride was the one I most anticipated for our stay in Arkansas, as we’d be hitting some of the “bucket list” roads and locations that I’ve seen mentioned time and time again in the ride reports of others. Based roughly on a loop I found in Rider magazine called “Heart of the Ozarks”, my route crosses over itself in a big figure 8 pattern in order to try to squeeze in many of the roads I wanted to hit, stops for meal/pie breaks, etc.

After some coffee and toast made from that delicious local spinach bread, we struck out into the 45F chill morning air around 09:00. Heading west again out of Harrison, we  continued straight on US 62 through Alpena this time, barreling across northern Arkansas in pretty light traffic. Scenery was mostly flat, passing pastures and local businesses along the highway interspersed with small town life in the towns of Green Forest and Berryville. Some of the signs and roadside art kept us amused.

Our first destination for the day is the popular resort town of Eureka Springs, about an hour from Harrison, where we hope to enjoy a fuller breakfast and maybe some pie. This unique community was founded around more natural (cold water) springs, on the side of a mountain within a steep-walled valley in the northwest corner of the state. It’s just a few miles from the Missouri line.

The springs, topography, and quirky old architecture throughout this town, draw artists and outdoors enthusiasts alike. The restaurants, shops, galleries, and outdoor pursuits have made it a destination for visitors to the Ozarks region, including us motorcyclists. Not to mention the spring water bath house, which is still open to the public. We passed by plenty of more modern hotels, restaurants, and outfitters on our way in, to handle what must be sizeable crowds in the warmer season.

Parking is limited within the historic district itself, with everything squeezed together on the steep side of the valley. It appears most visitors are forced to park a mile or more away and take shuttle buses in during peak times. We’d arrived early enough on a weekday (and out of prime season) that we had no trouble parking in one of the sloped public lots between buildings downtown.

Mud Street Café was our chosen breakfast spot, but is apparently closed on Tues-Wed, much to our chagrin. The place is known for it’s pie selections, and I was hoping to sample some to wash down my breakfast! Ah well, maybe next time. Closed restaurants were becoming a theme on this trip! I resolved to do better about checking on open hours before hitting any more well-known spots.

So we settled for a meal at the bustling Main Street Café just across the street, which was one of the only places open at this time of the morning. The food was decent typical diner food, and the service was friendly enough, if a bit taciturn and harried. While they didn’t have any pie available, I couldn’t resist a piece of blackberry cobbler to soothe my wounded feelings!

After our meal, we took a stroll around the narrow sloped streets and alleyways of Eureka Springs. We came upon the lovely Basin Springs Park and hiked up a steep footpath, including a very hanky ancient set of stairs to get to a nice viewpoint overlooking Main St. The fountain is located directly above the primary spring around which this town was built. Next door is a big old resort hotel which still has the spring waters piped in to offer mineral baths to their guests.

We saw more people walking the streets as the town woke up, and stopped to pet an adorable French bulldog named Daisy while chatting with her owners, also from out of state. After working our way up one of the steeper streets we decided to circle back down to the bike on a lower street via one of the alley staircases that run between the buildings, connecting the streets at different levels for pedestrians. They’ve made the downtown area as walker-friendly as you can when everything is built on a hillside!

We passed by the Basin Spring Bathhouse, but once again decided we didn’t have time to squeeze in a soak today. Our day was just beginning, and we have many miles to put down. Perhaps next time..

Almost back to the bike, we were hailed by a couple folks who turned out to be motorcyclists from Dallas. They had spotted the ST in the parking lot and wanted to chat a few minutes about my IBA plate backer.

Char and I geared back up and cruised slowly back up Main Street and out of the little valley, watching more tourists walking into town from parking lots along the entry road. The rest of our day would be spent in the back woods, away from busy towns. It turned out to be a twist-fest of incredible fun, running some of the best motorcycling roads the Ozarks have to offer.

We rode south out of Eureka Springs on AR 23, curving blissfully nice sweepers away from civilization into the quiet tree-lined woodlands of northern Arkansas. 23 is a well-known motorcycling road, with a particularly twisty and scenic stretch of it called the Pig Trail further south. We wouldn’t be riding that part today, however it seems to be a nice ride all along its length.

North of Huntsville, we bailed on 23, cutting the corner via AR 127 back down to familiar US 412 for a few miles east. Turning southeast on route 21, rounding more nice curves, we blinked and almost missed the tiny village of Kingston. It was actually pretty memorable as the town square is completely paved with a postage stamp sized grassy island in the middle with a bandstand. It seems to serve as a traffic circle (?) as well as parking area for the few local businesses or town offices lined up on the edge.

Highway 21/74 brought us down into the valley of Buffalo National River. Before researching this trip, I’d no idea that there was even such a thing as a “National River”, and there actually aren’t many. The Buffalo was the first one designated by the National Park Service and is one of the few major rivers in the lower 48 states to remain undammed and wild for its entire length of 135 miles. The NPS designation serves to create a buffer area around this natural gem for enjoyment of outdoor pursuits like hiking, climbing, rafting, as well as wilderness conservation. Like many of the larger parklands in this country, there are pre-existing public roadways and private properties lying within the park boundaries that predate its creation.

Turns out that a few great motorcycling roads coincide within this valley, including a nexus of state routes 21, 74, and 43. The fun riding an beautiful scenery is owed to the dramatic changes in topography coming in and out of the valley. We’d end up passing through this stretch a few times during our stay in the Ozarks.

At the valley bottom, we turned left onto AR 43 (and also route 74) for a bit, getting a brief glimpse of the river itself before continuing more easterly again on AR 74. Climbing out of the river valley to play along some hilly ridges, route 74 continued to impress us with delicious curves carved through the quiet Arkansas woods. We pretty much had the roads to ourselves or could easily pass slower vehicles without much of an issues. Really fun riding, and we saw quite a bit more fall color along the ridges.

After whipping a quick uey to snap a pic of the famous “motorcycle tree” along the side of 74 (no real pull-over spot and not really a big deal), we hit another small bit of curves through the Ozarks NF down into Jasper again. Nothing much different here today than two days ago and it wasn’t meal time again yet, so we just cruised on through.

Just south of town on AR 7, we pulled into the large sketchy gravel lot of the Scenic Point Gift Shop for another gander at the “Grand Canyon of the Ozarks”. We’d passed by this spot on our way from Hot Springs the other day since we’d already stopped at Cliff House and were running short on daylight. This was a good opportunity to see things from another angle.

We chatted with a small group of riders on cruisers there who were just finishing up their gawking at the lovely scenery. They were curious about the MA license plate and about the ST, staring in amazement when I told them the bike’s mileage. After bidding them safe journey, we went to take in the view for ourselves, climbing the wooden observation tower perched on the cliff’s edge. It was a heckuva nice look at the wide wooded Buffalo River valley below us, stretching northeast a few miles to where the river cut it’s twisty path through the trees.

We bought a couple stickers at the little gift shop there and gaped at the antique cash register that the old proprietor still uses to ring up sales. Perhaps not quite as old an antique as the one at War Eagle Mill, but certainly no credit cards are accepted at this establishment!

We got moving south again on route 7, shortly turning off on the smaller and wonderfully curvy AR 374, which took us several miles east to pick up AR 123. Now some real twisty fun began! It started with a wrong turn and brief excursion north a couple miles on 123 first. But the road and scenery were so good we didn’t even care.

After turning back and zipping through the sleepy crossroads of Mt. Judea, what followed were miles and miles of the most twisty fun you can have in the Ozarks!

Mostly within the Ozark National Forest now, the sharp turns and switchbacks over the next several miles of route 123 have earned it the moniker of ‘Arkansas Dragon’ by the local marketing powers that be. While not quite as unrelentingly curvy nor coiled up upon itself in sharp twists as it’s distant cousin in the Smokies, this is a FUN road and we enjoyed every mile. I may have let the occasional whoop go inside my helmet and over the comms.

123 merges briefly for a few miles with AR 7 at the southern end of this stretch, but then branches again at the Pelsor crossroads. Zipping though slightly less intense, but still fun curves through the forest, we shortly came up on the next little waypoint I’d stuck in the route, the historic Big Piney Creek Bridge (c 1931).

As we were ready for a stretch off the bike by now, we parked the bike in a small sketchy gravel pullout and doffed our helmets and jackets. Following a wide dirt trail down below the bridge, we strolled around on the riverbed stones for a bit, enjoying the quiet and watching tiny fish swimming in the edges of the water. There’s plenty of evidence that the creek can get much bigger during the wetter seasons, with dried out plant and other debris scattered around the banks.

While not particularly scenic or historically interesting for any one reason that I could find, the bridge exhibits impressive engineering from down below, and its isolation made it a nice spot for a stretch. There isn’t really any good parking aside from a small precarious pulloff at the top of a jeep trail that descends down to the creek. Aside from the very occasional car passing by up on the bridge, for a few minutes we enjoyed feeling ourselves dropped miles into nowhere, in the middle of the Ozark wilds.

Leaving the bridge, we continuing twisting and whooping our way south on route 123 through the woods, eventually coming down out of the mountains and onto the flatter, more urban landscape along I-40. We fueled up in Lamar by the junction with US 64, then followed that road parallel to some railroad tracks west through the center of Clarksville.

Turning back north on AR 103, we headed back into the hills, reaching more woods and curves again within 10 minutes or so. There were some great little twists and switchback getting back up over that first ridgeline, along with some pretty exposed rock cuts along the roadway. We crossed over the mostly dry streambed of the Mulberry River, shortly reaching the junction with AR 215.

Riding just a mile back east brought us into the small backwoods community of Oark. From the time I first started reading motorcycle ride reports from ADVrider inmates and other travelers, I’ve daydreamed over photos of the famous Oark General Store, an historic business still running strong and selling dry goods, souvenirs, sandwiches, and of course big slices of homemade pie.

A wayside stop beloved by motorcyclists, four-wheelers, and other outdoors enthusiasts for decades, this was a true bucket list item for me. With route 215 being the only paved road into Oark, the little town truly seems to represent the heart of the Ozarks lifestyle.

The famous round cafe sign was apparently down for repairs during our visit (sad panda), but I took the requisite photos regardless. We parked the bike alongside several tricked-out and dirt-covered SUVs with roof shelters attached, and said hello to the resident mutt, a sweet old thing that didn’t seem impressed by us visiting yankees and just wanted to be left alone.

The store itself is a feast for the eyes, from the outside in, with stickers galore affixed by visitors from all parts of the country and world, most like. The inside is dominated by the dining area, with plenty of tables for eating the deli sandwiches behind made behind the big counter on the left, and the delicious looking pies in the showcase.

Pie was all I wanted or needed at this point, a big warm slice of Dutch apple with a scoop of ice cream, served up in a cardboard tray. Let it be recorded here and in these pages that this was THE best slice of pie I’ve eaten to-date. Every mouthful was bliss and my legs jigged with enjoyment like a little kid under the table as we enjoyed our just dessert. This was my happy place.

While watching the comings and goings around us, we finished up and licked our plates clean (figuratively of course….right? 😬). I bought a sticker and Char got a new ball cap to commemorate our visit.

The ride west out of Oark on 215 was also scenic and curvy, taking us several miles past where we’d joined from103. All felt right with the world after that magnificent helping of dessert deliciousness. Bucket list item checked off, but I’ll be returning here whenever I possibly can to get another slice of that!

Reaching AR 23 at last, smack in the middle of the famous “Pig Trail” section, we turned north. Although this road was supposed to be another of today’s highlights, three separate one-lane constructions zones slowed our roll over the next several miles. Even so, the curves and scenery look like they live up to the hype when the road is in better shape. We were still able to have a bit of fun in-between the roadwork.

The terrain opened up a bit as we turned back east on AR 16 along the northern border of the Ozark Forest for several miles. There were more nice sections of sweepers and twists to enjoy as golden hour settled across the Arkansas countryside.

We were feeling a bit pooped from the long day exploring and riding as we turned north on AR 21 for even more great curves. Spotting an empty church parking lot with a big old wooden pavilion, we pulled in to take a 15 minute break out of the saddle to stretch our legs and drink some water. Just a short push onward from here to finish out the day.

Riding up into the Buffalo River valley, we joined AR 74 again for a couple miles, crossing our earlier path and completing the lower loop of our figure-8. We stuck north following AR 43 this time, more directly NNE back up to Harrison and our waiting homestead.

We cooked up some pasta and sausage patties for a late dinner as we thought back over the long day of iconic Ozarks riding and sightseeing, hatching our plans for tomorrow’s adventure.

More photos from today’s outing.