Where Did you Get the Cute Southern Drawl? Branson Mo. to Harrison AR.

Dizzy Dean, Johnny Cash, Bill Clinton and Diane (Carter) McDaniel - What do these people have in common? They were all born in Arkansas.

We planned a short day to recoup from the ride into Branson.  And while the mountains mellowed into hills with very climbable grades, it was a blustery day with an evil southern wind.  So our 37 mile day became a training session on how to ride into the wind. Diane has become excellent at drafting. Nevertheless the combination of bad winds and long grades resulted in an average of only 8 mph.

Still there were small joys dispersed through the day. We ate our first Arkansas roadside meal of beanie weenie (the new baked bean variety), cold peaches, Fritos, turkey sausage and ice cold water.   Experienced our first look at the beautiful state of Arkansas, had a great conversation with the people who staff the Arkansas visitor center plus Diane found a store with her gluten free bread and breakfast cereal.  And we topped it off by up-grading our accommodations to a Holiday Inn Express…. Life is good.  

Arkansas begins to show it's fall colors.

And Diane triumphantlly returns to her place of birth.

At the time of this posting, we haven't solidified plans for tomorrow but we are still headed south.
Rob and Diane

PS  Some readers have asked why no pics of Rob? Answer - because he has the camera.  But to mollify the curious................

You've got to love that cycling tan.