Motorcycle Diaries: Arkansas : A new Country , A new Beginning !

This blog was originally written back in 2010 , so rewind few years back read :)

July Month, Year 2010 @ America - Dallas, Texas

It's been 5 months since I moved to Dallas. I came to US on a work assignment, the first country I am visiting out of India. I haven't ridden a motorcycle since we landed. I always wanted to ride a bigger/powerful motorcycle ever since I landed in US, back in India I used to ride a 225cc Honda. So I though of renting one here.

Very next weekend went to a rental shop to look for motorcycles. I wanted to take something for touring and comfortable for my wife as a pillion. He had bikes in all segments, I but I didn't want to go for a bigger 1000cc for the first time experience . FZ was the only choice I looked at since it almost had the same stance and seating position as mine, of course much powerful than my 17bhp honda. So reserved the motorcycle and decided to ride on the July 4th weekend.

Day 1

Started around 7:20 am, It was drizzling here in Dallas. I was not yet comfortable with the bike's clutch. Especially in traffic in city limits it got switched of couple of times when I had to stop and go. It took some time, then I got used to it. Fist 50 miles I was getting used to the bike and the highway riding here. I am used to 70 miles per hour in India but here its quite different. More over this time its quite different that I have my wife as a pillion/passenger . By the way forgot to mention we got married in Jan this year, so this was our first long ride, though we had couple of short one day rides back in India. So this is more of like a Honeymoon Ride.

The plan was to hit Talihina and ride through Talimena scenic drive , then head to Mount Magazine/Mena. I got pretty much comfortable with the bikes after around 50 miles and was much less nervous than when we started. It was drizzling all the way, but in a way it was good that it kept us cool and for me it was a perfect condition to ride. I love riding in rain. We stopped couple of times including a fuel stop before Talihina.

We reached Talihina around 1:30 in the afternoon. Went ahead and drove towards Scenic Drive. We had only one pair of rain gear which I gave to my wife. I was completely drenched and was quite liking it. We stopped in the Information center just before the scenic drive starts. Took half an hour break , took area map and registered our name in the visitor record.

Another Couple on Harley

I had bought GoPro HD helmet Cam a day before the ride. I tried to set it up on helmet , it didn't work out since helmet was wet and more over I was not installing it correctly which I realized later. I do have a video though.

We started from there and moved on to the scenic drive. This is when I was totally got surprised by what we are seeing.I never knew US had this beautiful place which is more green like back in India. It was completely foggy and it reminds me of many routes I rode back in India with much better roads.

The whole way till Mean was completely foggy,just mind blowing. The only problem being we couldn't see all the view points because nothing was visible because of fog. We took around 3 and hour to cover just 60 miles till Mena. But I must say this was the best part of the trip just pure natural beauty and perfect weather.

We reached Mena around 5:30 and had the first full meal of the day, before that we just had snacks when ever we stopped. Plan is to camp for the night. So after having food we went to a store in the town. We had got along only just Tent with us. So we bought sleeping bag and one more pair rain gear , some snacks.

We had booked a tent space in Renegade Ranch. Set the route in GPS and called the care taker when we reached close by. Had to spent 5 mins to figure out the place since we rode a little ahead.

Since it rained, everyone else except us had canceled the booking, so it was just us in the entire camp ground. So we get to pick up any spot. They gave us a can of water. We setup the tent pretty quick and took rest.
Then it was time for Camp fire , next one hour was looking around to get some dry woods. It was nice weather at night we could hear only the night insects noise as a music. Slept nice and tight , however later in the night we heard some noise near the tent. May be it was not animals ! This was our first camping experience as well. Tomorrow we have to reach mount magazine park and camp there. However we did not had a reservation !

Day 2 – Being Stupid - A day with full of events !

To be continued ! - Stay tuned for my next blog !

Since this trip we rode across US covering many miles of roads, mountains and skies. There is much more to come !
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