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Harrison AR – Winchester KY
Fri Oct 11, 2024
(~596 miles)

Traveling again! I’d spent some time over the past few evenings sketching out a route towards home, over a mix of bigger, faster highways and some quieter state routes away from busy cities. We have three days of our vacation left, so while we have a bunch of ground to cover, why not make the most of it by routing along some unfamiliar roads on the way back northeast. Always game for slicing through those untrodden areas of my ride-history map!

With a long day ahead, the alarm chimed at 05:00 to get up and at ’em (much to Char’s chagrin – NOT a morning person). We finished up some of our remaining grocery supplies with one last breakfast at the AirBnB, then tidied up and checked off all the instructions from our host before leaving. This little casa had served us well and we’d stay here again in a heartbeat.

After all that, we were KSU around 07:30 just before sunrise, in 40F temperatures that required wearing our heated liners for the first few hours of riding. Clearing out of Harrison, we enjoyed riding into the pinkish sunrise that promised some warmth in the hours ahead. We headed east on US 65 again for a couple miles, this time veering left to continue running more easterly on 412 towards the city of Mountain Home.

There was a chuckle or two exchanged when we stopped to fuel up in a town called Gassville. That’s also where we turned north on AR 126 to cut the corner up to route 5 and bypass Mountain Home. Within several miles, we crossed the state line into Missouri, bidding a fond farewell to Arkansas after the wonderful time we’d spent there over the last few days.

We soon picked up US 160 heading east along the bottom of Missouri for a couple hundred miles. While it’s probably considered a major highway through this part of the state, route 160 passes through very few towns and the scenery is mostly rural farmlands, woods, and hills.

While not very curvy, the long straight sections often had two or three rippling hills visible on the pavement ahead of us, as the road soared and dipped over the old crinkled landscape. Many of the rises were the kind where your stomach does that nice flip-flop as the tires momentarily touch the pavement more lightly. Whoop! Plenty of passing zones too, so we were able to make good time across the ‘Show Me’ state while enjoying the views and just feeling in the zone for miles and miles.

Along the way, we learned how difficult it is for a pillion to pass a handful of peanuts to the rider, with most of ours being whipped from between our ungloved hands violently by the air currents circulating through the cockpit area. The peanuts scattered over the tank bag, down between my crotch and the seat, and to the four winds in general, causing us many giggles as we recalled ‘The Great Peanut Exchange Failure’ for the rest of the trip. I guess this is why LD riders tend to eat Clif Bars and jerky. 🤮

Some four hours later, with just one fuel stop in Poplar Bluff, we found ourselves on US 60 moving through the wide flat floodplains of the Mississippi River. There were some big cotton fields, which Char hadn’t seen before on such a large scale, some ready for harvest and some already put to bed for the winter. Finally, we reached the Mississippi herself, where she meets the mighty Ohio in Cairo, at the far southern tip of Illinois. Ole Miss more than doubles in size below this junction as the Ohio actually carries more water volume at it’s mouth.

We crossed both rivers just above their meeting in a matter of minutes, with barely enough time to blink and miss our brief foray through the state of Illinois, at Fort Defiance. And just like that we found ourselves in Kentucky, signaling the end of this trip’s chapter in the western US.

In Wickliffe, we picked up rural KY 286 shooting due east for some 20 miles to the Paducah area, where we hopped on the interstate system for the first time in days. I-24 and I-69 brought us quickly out to Nortonville, where we joined the Western Kentucky Parkway.

The big parkways of Kentucky are fast, interstate-caliber thoroughfares, though much more scenic. We made good time through the western reaches of the state while enjoying the dramatic rock-cuts through the hills that are a hallmark of these routes.

The traffic around Lexington sucks, no two ways about it. Considering it’s a pretty major city, it’s strange that it doesn’t have a true loop highway encircling it without intersections and stoplights. The original route I’d sketched out was for a slightly longer way around it on interstate via Frankfort, but we’d been cruising along so nicely that I’d been lulled into complacence. It was getting later in the day, and our destination is just on the other side of town. We decided to follow Google Maps, drifting straight into the morass of Lexington traffic right around evening rush hour. Ugh.

Our first standstill came after re-joining US 60 just before the airport outside city limits. It had been a long day without many stops. I had no patience for sitting still after all the beautiful empty roads we’d been zipping around all week. Zooming around on my GPS, I spotted some local roads parallel to our route that would allow us to keep moving. Several locals apparently had the same idea, and we ended up following a short line of them on a cheerful little jaunt through the nearby horse farms, to get around the airport and cut off a few miles of stoplight traffic. I’m not sure it saved a lot of time but it was a nicer ride and at least we were moving in the late afternoon heat.

Once in Lexington proper, we took New Circle Road almost halfway around the city to Broadway. Sitting in the traffic, we edged our way through many stoplights and finally made it to I-64 to get the hell out of this mess. Fifteen minutes later we were exiting into the smaller, built-up suburb of Winchester.

I’d had a hard time finding available hotels in our desired price range along this stretch of the journey, so we’d ended up a Best Western, which we easily found from the interstate. It was a decent place, with the motel-style rooms I tend to like, but of similar quality to places we usually stay for $40 cheaper. Ah well.

After cleaning up, we had no desire to get back on the motorcycle after all that traffic, so we looked for sustenance within walking distance. We’d spotted a taco place just down the street and the reviews seemed good, so we set off down a narrow sidewalk along the very busy boulevard. It was past 19:30 and the darkness of evening was already upon us as we reached Queso Times.

The place is locally owned, billed as an “express Mexican grill”. You order cafeteria style up at the front, tell them what you want as they make it, and get to watch as they assemble a meal of steaming hot goodness in Subway-style. I opted for a trio of delicious quesabirria tacos, where they dip the tortillas (doubled-up with melted cheese between) in the delicious red sauce from the birria meat, along with a side of street corn.

Washed it all down with some delicious locally-produced ginger ale called Ale-8. Char got a huge taco salad that looked fresh and appetizing. I don’t know if it’s because we were so hungry or if the food was really that delicious (or both), but this meal was SO GOOD. The cares and strains of the day drifted away as we enjoyed our hot delicious soul food, very content with the miles and progress we’d made towards home today while keeping it fairly scenic.

More photos from today’s ride.