Trip To Iron Horse Stables
Our Friday morning ride to Eureka Springs, Arkansas took us south through the rolling hills and curves of the Ozarks and  scenic landscape of the Mark Twain National Forest. In Eagle Rock, just north of the Missouri/Arkansas line, we stopped at a place called My Mother's Restaurant for lunch. After lunch, while crossing from Missouri into Arkansas, I had a Wounded-Knee (Steve Weinberg) episode. Since I had mapped out the route and was leading our group of five bikes, I have to take full responsibility. I forgot that just because a road has a designation on one side of the state line doesn't mean it's called the same thing on the other. But in all honesty, I missed the turn off and we were several miles down the road before I discovered the error and we had to back track. We got to Iron Horse a little later than originally planned, but it was still a beautiful ride. Friday night consisted of the usual socializing that goes on into the wee hours. Les Sergott has a trick with a beer bottle that you'll have to have him demonstrate. (If anyone has pictures of this bottle event I'd like to see them. Les says he doesn't remember it) At some point during the night a storm moved in and we got rain accompanied by a little lightning and thunder.Saturday morning dawned a little threatening, but the weather cleared by midmorning making for an enjoyable ride to Beaver Dam and a visit to an old wooden suspension bridge. In Eureka Springs we stopped for lunch and had an encounter with an allegedly "biker friendly" bar and restaurant called the Pied Piper Pub & Inn, in downtown Eureka Springs. They're not as biker friendly as they profess to be. I'll not go into detail, but it's definitely not a place I'll recommend.Saturday night brought another round of drinking and story telling, but with less intensity. Sunday morning we made it an official Blue Knights ride and this is where it got interesting. Rain moved in before we could leave Iron Horse. About the time one rainstorm would pass through and patches of blue would appear in the west, another would develop before we could leave. The rain came in waves, each one a little more intense than the one before.
At one point, pea to marble size hail, with accompanying wind sent us running for cover inside our rooms. Around 11:30 AM we got what would prove to be yet another erroneous report that the last system had moved through and  the weather was clearing to the west and north (our direction of travel). So we saddled up, 8 bikes in all, and made it to Eureka (about 6 miles) before it started to rain again. But we could still see  patches of blue  sky to the west. We were being baited and we took the bait.
Taking Highway 23, we rode through downtown Eureka in the pounding rain. Just before reaching the Arkansas/Missouri state line it quit raining and some of us optimistically shed our raingear. Those patches of blue, like dangling carrots, lured us onward into the Mark Twain Forest where we got hit with both rain and hail. With no shoulder to pull over on, our motorcycling skills were tested to the max as we negotiated the narrow road and twisting curves in the rain and hail. It was white-knuckle riding at its best. When we reached Monett, Mo., it looked like we were finally out of it. But at Pierce City, looming to the west (the direction we were headed) was a huge ominous black mass with streaks of lighting spitting out of its core like a fire breathing dragon. We put this motorcycle-eating storm in our rearview mirrors and beat feet east. We managed to circumvent the storm and learned from later reports that Eagle Rock was under a flashflood and 60-MPH wind warning. We managed to escape the worst of it although you wouldn't have thought so to hear Frank complain. It seems a hailstone caught him on the lip or somewhere near his mouth. Wonder how that could have happened?
The only mechanical difficulty on the trip was John Pressly's  Harley  that was making sounds like an angry, gargling canary on steroids. But the bike held up and made it back under its own power. So, another exciting Blue Knights' trip makes it into the annals to become folklore and  be told and retold around the social campfires with ever increasing embellishments .
F. D. Jordan
Ride With Pride