We Still Got Wet Afterall!

I'm not a very good story teller, but at the end of the ride last Sunday, Carol suggested I write down our adventure in a blog. So, here goes my attempt.

If you follow our website, you know that we try to do a ride each month all year long. We try to avoid wet weather, but will ride even when it is cold (Except me, I always try to get out of it when the thermometer drops below 40). This past Sunday, the 24th, we had scheduled our annual Ferry Boat Ride. We were to take a leisurely ride down 125 to Forsyth, have lunch at Dannas BBQ and then take the Ferry across Bull Shoals into Arkansas. This is always a great ride. Needless to say, this ride was not going to occur due to the weather that day. None of us wanted to purposely ride in thunderstorms.

So, we decided to head north and end up at Smith's Restaurant in Bolivar. We headed out old Route 66 leaving around 11:30am to Phillipsburg and then north to Bennett Springs State Park. We decided to ride through Bennett Springs and have a motorcycle parade. We did get a lot of attention! After leaving Bennett Springs, we took a few back county roads and ended up on Hwy 32 which was to take us into Bolivar. Unfortunately, Hwy 32 going West was closed and we had to go all the way back to either Conway or Lebanon to be able to head back west. We pulled into a gas station just south of Bennett Springs and the lady asked if we were lost because she saw us go by earlier. No, we weren't lost, we just had to make a complete circle due to the highway being closed and no warning. By that time it was nearly 2pm, fuel for both people and motorcycles were running low.

We decided to head to Lebanon and eat at a Mexican Buffett that Tom knew about. We get to the restaurant and low and behold it's CLOSED!!!! Good grief! We then circled back through town and pulled into a little Italian restaurant that looked promising, but alas, was not. The service took forever, the pizza was great, but if you had some of the Blue Cheese dressing, you weren't feeling very well the rest of the evening.

It was close to 4PM when we left there and the sky was beginning to look ominus. We all headed out together, but some were smarter than others. Some put their rain gear on before we left the restaurant, some put it on after turning the corner towards I-44 and seeing the dark cloud ahead and some of us thought we could beat the weather! Those of us who thought we could beat the weather were very wet by the time we got home, but our rain gear was nice and dry! What started out as a perfectly planned ride and was still a beautiful day to ride, ended with a story that we will all still be talking about 20 years from now.

The next time you think you don't have time to take a ride with a group of friends, think again, as you never know what kind of adventure you could have!

To view Cody's helmet cam video of the ride in the rain click here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fidrs_mmPAQ