As nature casually lapped at the stream and munched on some cud.

Back on the road, with our fancy new cold weather outfits, we were less numb but even more laden. On cold days we were super appreciative of our friend's generosity whilst on the occasional hot day we found ourselves perched atop a mountain of folded coats and jumpers. It was certainly not the slickest of operations but we made it work. No more sore bums at least!

After mere minutes en route we crossed paths with a gaunt and shaggy fellow who looked rather worse for wear. He was skulking across a relatively busy road and once we'd pulled over and switched off we managed to coax him over with the remaining scraps of food we had - a can of sweet corn, some crisps, a bit of water. This pooch was really ragged looking, it was terrible to see. It looked as if he'd been living wild for a fair amount of time and not very successfully. His fur was lank, he looked downtrodden and hopeless and his frame was painfully thin. We had to do something.

A really odd yet epic house we stumbled across, deserted, on a hill overlooking a lake. We rolled up the drive nervously and saw no one, heard nothing. It was eerie, scary, and more than a little fun.

Whilst Aby stayed with him and gave him some much needed cuddles, I headed up the road to see if the nearest neighbour had any idea where he had come from. When I arrived they had dogs and I was suddenly hopeful that perhaps we could re-home him there. They seemed friendly, had a child and a big garden, but it wasn't happening. They directed me down the road to an older gent who apparently had had sheep dogs in the past, working dogs for his farm, so off I headed to meet him.

After repeated knocks on the door and plenty of rustling from inside I was finally gifted a hello through a tiny crack in the door, TV still blaring in the background through the room's darkness. I explained the situation as succinctly as possible whilst trying not to sound like a very imaginative prospective home invader. This is rural Arkansas after all - everyone is packing shotguns! She mumbled something about her husband around back and, mentally crossing my fingers, I headed round the house to meet my future...

Seventy plus, cowboy boots, extravagantly bearded, a half full bottle of whiskey in hand, several empties packed in a crate on the floor, I met this absolute character of a man. He listened to me and chuckled jovially, "You're a good kid ain'tcha! I see that. Hur hur hurrr!" He got straight onto his phone and called the Sheriff's office (I love America!) for information on the dog pound and whether the dog could be collected. By some beautiful twist of fate it turned out that the receptionist at the Sheriff's office had sheep and could do with a dog of this kind,  so she'd be on her way to collect him after work. After a chin wag with beardy about life (ex truck driver turned farmer) and animals ("they're smarter than us humans, sometimes they just need some help"), we headed back to collect shaggy from down the road.

Just floating, with ancient felled trees on a passive Arkansas lake.

Our mode of transport was an incredible clunker of a pick-up, the make escapes me, but with 280,000 miles on the clock and more dents that windows she still ran like a treat, he assured me. Meanwhile back on the side of the road with Absta, during a thirty minute period she'd had about ten different sets of people pull over to offer help, a ride, or just ask what was up. Just an indication of how friendly all the locals seemed to be - particularly the men in pick-ups to a gorgeous young lady. Seriously though, we even got invited to the local town for dinner. Once woofer was back at our buddy's garden I watched him wolfing down an overflowing bowl of dog food (the pooch I mean!), smiled, and we hit the road.

Elks doing what they do.

Having lost a few hours to a pretty unexpected occurrence we tried to twist the wrist, if ya know what I mean, cruising through forests and over rolling hills, along the renowned motorbike route of the Arkansas 'Pig Trail'. It's well known for good reason - the scenery is just fantastic and on a sunny afternoon in April we couldn't have felt luckier. We sailed our way right through the afternoon on favourable winds with sights set, upon recommendation from Don & Carrie, on the lush valley of Buffalo River. As we cruised past another abundant meadow we glanced right to observe a huge herd of elk. For our first sighting of these funky looking mammals to be not just one, but an impressive flock of bulls, cows and calves was really special. We gawped with the best of them, and believe me we weren't the only ones screeching to a halt. It was so nice to see everyone taking time to enjoy nature, as nature casually lapped at the stream and munched on some cud. Breathtaking.

 Next up was a thrilling excursion into riotous Ponca - population 14. It seemed a real point of pride, the number of inhabitants, which sounds weird perhaps, but we liked it. I also got a lesson in the benefits of lower octane fuel for scooter engines from the girl in the extremely old-school gas station (imagine a clunky numeric display ticking around and a trust based payment where you have to stop at the amount you've paid for). It was fantastic, and doubtless older than Aby and I combined which made it even more fun to experience a bit of that era. As great as Ponca was though it wasn't strictly on our route, and we had to backtrack a little to a major road, with darkness and fatigue descending. 



We blasted onwards into dusk, stopping only at a popular fast food 'restaurant' for a hot choccy and to book a motel for that night. Neither of us fancied a wearied tent erection and my body odour was now slipping from inhumane to catastrophic. A further hour or so found us thanking the motel owner in Eureka Springs for waiting for us to arrive, long glorious showers, bizarre worship of the clean sheets, then unconsciousness.


A church of glass. God will be most pleased.

Morning (late morning of course!) bought us around to an exciting new town! And rain. Plenty of icy rain, so after sorting out washing (dreamy) and admiring some of the gorgeous wooden framed housing we hussled pronto into the Mud St Cafe who, I think it's fair to say from their frankly ridiculous list of coffee awards, know how to make a decent brew. We were so happy to be here, in the dry, on a sofa, with coffee. It was the perfect place to recover after a good few days of mileage and camping, and we took advantage of this. There are even rumours that we took off our shoes and dried our trousers on the radiator but these are unsubstantiated, officer. Our new friends at the cafe (we were there for about four hours after all) were kind enough to give us some pastries for the road and a target camping spot for that night - Roaring River National Park. Although the weather did put a dampener (See what I did there?! With the rain... No one?) on the day in Eureka, we still enjoyed the hippy vibrations a lot. Also on the way out of town we saw a massive statue of jesus, like in Rio de Janeiro (but way less cool) and a glass church in the forest, which was... Leafy. All good fun really.

Sofa bliss at the Mud St Cafe
A piece of art that blew our mind with it's detail, precision, utter beauty. So like a photograph, it's painstaking finesse. The kind of thing you only see in a photo. I mean wow, it looks just like a photo......
It is a photo.


And so on to Missouri we rolled.


DMD




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