Day Thirteen - Conway

We got up early and left Amarillo by 0500 to take advantage of the cool of the morning and light traffic. There was also NO RAIN! Yes...that means that it was DRY. We were HAPPY.

We got to Oklahoma by sunrise and the terrain became even more flat. Also, it became very windy. When it is too windy, it is also difficult to take pictures because you are constantly fighting the bike with both hands. Mind you, I am not complaining....we were dry. Most of Oklahoma was largly unremarkable.

Probably the most interesting thing that we saw was a windmill farm. There were just hundreds (?) of them on both sides of the road. It is hard to get an idea of scale from this picture, but they were quite large.









I suppose that it is always windy here or they wouldn't have a windmill farm, huh? Oklahoma was not a hot and miserable as the part of Wyoming we went through, but it was close. We just rode!

We needed to get out of the heat for a few minutes by the time we crossed the border into Arkansas. The rest stop had cages around all of the vending machines. I have never seen this before. I don't know if I should have been suprised, but I was. We did not go too far away from the bikes and kept them in sight the whole time we were there relaxing in the shade.

Usually we ask about the next stop on the night before while having dinner or when checking into our hotel for the evening. No one thought that there was a safe place to stay in Little Rock, AR. The general consensus seemed to be that the town of Conway (about 20 miles or so west of Little Rock) was our best bet. It was described to us as a "college town". We stopped there and checked into a Holiday Inn Express. There was even an Outback Steakhouse and a Wal-Mart within walking distance.

We walked to the Wal-mart and I got some cough medicine....the pills are not working that well. And then we Walked to the Outback for dinner. It turns out that Conway is infact a college town. There are three colleges here: UCA - Central Arkansas, Hendrix College, and Central Baptist College. Also, this is the home of Axiom, a data processing firm. When you use your Visa or MasterCard, Conway is where the transaction is routed and processed!

The Outback was a story in itself. There were two entrances. One said "Public Restaurant" and the other said "Private Club". If you want to be served alcohol, it is necessary to "join" the private club (Five dollars is the charge for a year's membership). You have to fill out a form and sign a book. Only one person in the group needs to be a member and others with them may sign another book as "guests". It seems that this is some issue from the era of Prohibition in the 1920's that the local lawmakers in Conway have not been able to figure out how to solve. I just don't know what else to say about that....it is not often that I am left speechless!

We traveled 589 miles today and our intent is to duplicate that effort tomorrow. We will try to get up early again and take advantage of the cool of the morning. It seems as if we are not at risk for harsh rains as we continue east. If it is as hot as today (100+) then we will probably take a break somewhere with air conditioning for the afternoon hours and then resume riding as the day is cooling down. To be able to make it to Bristol, TN would be great, but to reach Knoxville, TN would still be a good day's ride.