Mammoth Springs, MO

Hello Again:
You know when you wake up in the morning you just never know what will be in store for you that day. It really has been an amazing day for us. We left Dyersburg, Tn today about noon. The day before was very frustrating for me as Best Western had a poor wireless hook up and Chriss and I had a very hard time hooking up to write my daily letter in spite of help from their tech person. Anyway a new day and we will move on. Had breakfast at Perkins which was connected to Best Western and off we went. on Rte 155 toward Arkansas in the nice bright sunshine temp in the 80's. Crossing the Mississippi was interesting. I did take a picture while in motion. No Jan, I didn't dip my toes in it, the bridge was too high. Almost our whole trip today was on Rte 412 and it was a nice ride with multiple stops for gas and gatorade. A road sign told us we were close to Mammoth Springs so we made the detour to view that wonder. Very interesting no gushing water but some very pretty water falls from ponds fed by the spring that overflowed making some gushing falls to view. Then we returned to the town of Hardy, Ar to stay at a Best Western that had a Kopper Keddle restaurant across the street. We dumped our stuff in the motel Got the bike parked comfortably under an overhang with the help of a very nice motel owner who kindly supplied an old shower curtain to protect it from any rain.
Nice lady. Then off to the Kopper Keddle for a tasty Chicken Cesar Salad and a delicious choc. pudding, cherry, and crushed oreo and whip
cream concoction that was called dessert. We ended up talking to
everyone in the restaurant including the owner and other diners. Could be because we were dressed in our black silk shorts and shirts with black knee high socks and boots. One person asked if we were some sort of dance team. Yeah, sure! not in these boots. Anyway after a good laugh we just said we were on a bike and it was too hot to wear the whole outfit and the restaurant was closing soon so we were in a hurry and left the hotel in just what we were wearing. There were two couples about our age at a table in back of us that started to talk to us as we were getting ready to leave. Well we ended up sitting down again with them and telling them about our trip and our Blog and they wanted to read about our adventures. I took e-mail addresses and names. Seems they were vacationing at a nearby time share.. They originally met at the time share and had been coming back for many years. One couple from Kentucky and the other from Chicago, Il. Really nice people and interesting. When the restaurant closed we went outside and continued talking in the parking lot. Then they asked us to come to their time share house for dessert. We finally agreed and they drove in thier car about 5 miles to their place where we spent the evening and had peach pie and ice cream. Now it is 1:00 AM and I am typing away and Chriss is doing laundry in our Motel room. See what I mean, life on the road is so unpredictable.

We only got half way across Arkansas today but I did see Cotton growing and also soybeans. After a few mountains in the eastern part of this state it is very flat, huge fields that go on for miles and miles. Now however we are back in the hills and I like it better. It was a great day. Tomorrow our plan is to continue on Rte 412/62 to Harrison, Ar. then sought on Rte 7 to Hot Springs. Rte 7 is supposed to be a very scenic road. We will see.

Will write more tomorrow,
Love, Mom and Chriss