Cycle Across America — Part 34
Western Arkansas
Excerpts from the journal of my 1996 solo cycle across the US. Read the entire story from the introduction in Boston or see links to all segments of the trip.
September 4, Wednesday I reckon. After midnight.
Gambled on having no miles under my belt before breakfast. Russellville. I was concerned that if I got nothing across the river in Dardanelle, there might be nowhere to find food until Paris — about 40 miles away. So I had another great cultural experience of stodge and grease at Burger King, and then bloated myself on several cokes.
As it happened when I crossed the Arkansas River into Dardanelle I discovered it was quite a nice town and I could have eaten there. The bridge across was too tight for space and busy with traffic for me to stop and take a photo.
Once across though I just turned right and then it was time to put my map away as it was Highway 22 all the way to Fort Smith — or at least to Barling, on the outskirts of Fort Smith, where I would then work out a safe route to cycle in on.
Today’s route followed the Arkansas River west. I was on the south side heading for Subiaco, Paris, Caulksville, and Charlston. If I stayed on the north side I would be going through London, Ozark, Mulberry, Alma, and into Fort Smith via Van Buren. It’s impossible not to enjoy town names in America, especially when faced with a choice of London or Paris.
At one point there was good view of the nuclear power station on the other side of the river, also called Lake Dardanelle at this point as the river is dammed at Dardanelle, and I recalled the handbook in the motel last night that advised you what do to in the event of a nuclear accident.
It was an easy day mostly, a pleasant day. Seventy-nine miles compared to yesterday’s 78. More dead armadillos. I have yet to see a live one.
At a town called New Blaine I stopped at a general store for drinks. I think the store is all that there was in New Blaine.
After that I passed Midway, but it wasn’t. What is was though was a turn off for a couple of recreation areas by the Arkansas River. And one of them was called Dublin. So I took a photo of the sign, and then I felt stupid.
I liked Subiaco, and I ate in Paris so I could say I ate in Paris. It was a nice town, of 2-story, flat-roofed red-brick buildings around a crossroads with an elegant courthouse in a square in the centre.
Just past Paris there were two distinctive oblong hills covered completely in trees. This was to the north. The Arkansas River meandered so much that, even though I was following it on the south side, sometimes there was as much as 15 miles between me and the river.
Caulksville was little more than a church with a scattering of houses, but then Carbon City had been even less. Half a dozen houses there and just as many fields. It was probably called a city because there is a crossroads there. I think.
Branch had buildings other than a church. Or at least it used to. And Bloomer was the same. I wondered what these non-towns were like when they were actual towns. Charleston though still was a town. A very small one, but pretty. More flat-roofed, 2-story buildings of painted brick, in terraces if that’s what you call buildings joined together. And mostly on one side of the street. On the other is the county courthouse, set in off the road as they all are. This one was a big robust, 3 or 4-story flat-roofed, brick cube, with long narrow windows. The one back in Paris in the square had on each of its sides a large white portico with big important columns, and it was topped off with a tower-like cupola thing.
Overall it was a crisp day of green fields and solid but not overbearing traffic. Until the last stretch when I went alongside Fort Chaffee. Just before that I went through Central City, which despite its name was just a Baptist church and a garage.
Fort Chaffee is a 70,000-plus acre military base which was a major training site for thousands of troops during World War II. It was also where Elvis was inducted into the U.S. army in 1958. It’s where he got that famous haircut. For many years it’s been declared inactive but is reactivated from time to time, like for refugees from Vietnam and from Cuba.
Cycling alongside it was weird. It could see it for miles with all these huts covered with grass. And no people. It was like a film set. “Biloxi Blues” was filmed there. Around this point there were signs on the road keeping a running total of deer killed in traffic accidents. There was no shoulder and little room, when I really could have used it. I think it was work traffic I was now getting caught up in. I needed a city and fast. And one bigger than Central City or Carbon City.
It was getting dark as I came into Fort Smith, and suddenly I lost track of my roads. Big busy roads, and major junctions, with traffic in a built up area in the dark. The traffic is fast and I’m fretting as it really isn’t all that long ago when I was hit by the truck that has me limping in pain still.
In these circumstances the nearest motel will do, and I don’t care what the town looks like. The sun will shine on downtown Fort Smith in the morning.
So I’m comfortable in a Motel-6, and I’ve just written a few more postcards. And I’m tickled by the stamps I bought yesterday. Each postcard has two stamps. The 32c stamp is of Marilyn Monroe in full colour in all her glory. And the 23c stamp is an ink drawing of Mary Cassatt.
For dinner I hit a Western Sizzlin across the road, for I’m in the part of the city that is all big box buildings and big roads. And I called Kansas City. I’m on target, my latest of many changing targets, to make it there for the halfway rest in seven days.
I’m fatigued, about one mile from the Oklahoma border — as the crow flies that is, it’s maybe 4 or 5 miles along the highway — but despite the anxious ending of the day’s cycling, and the yawns, today was a good day; I don’t know why. It went well. I feel very alert and alive.
Read the Next Segment: Part 35 — Arkansas Into Oklahoma
See: links to all segments of the trip
Read from the beginning of the trip in Boston
