Homemade Breakfast Sandwich

Homemade breakfast sandwich to get my work day started today. They don't look like much but they were delicious! Only a few more hours until I'm free to head south!

Ready for Ozark National Forest

Only two more days of work between me and riding in the Ozark National Forest with friends! I am very excited about this ride. This area is one of my favorite in the country and I can't wait to explore it more closely. Hopefully I don't lose any more parts on this ride. I suppose it makes a better story if things don't go exactly as planned though.

I finished prepping the DRZ last night. The clean air filter made an enormous difference. I had no idea how bad it was until I took it out. It would hold water rather than letting it pass through. 20 minutes soaking with air filter cleaner though and a really thorough rinse made it as good as new. Then spray with air filter oil and we are ready to rock! It was like a brand new bike between that and the new back tire.

The routes, for this weekend are a bit spotty but I think they should suffice for general navigation. It looks like we have a decent chance of rain while we are riding a few of the days but after riding the trails last Thursday in the rain, I am not too worried about it.

On a related note, I have said it before but I love dualsportmaps.com. It makes route planning so much easier. Last weekend I had my gps on the handlebars and had no trouble following the route that I put together before I left. It was easy to alter the route as I went along too. I came to a few spots where the road was closed and I need to make alterations to the route that I had put together. I had no trouble navigating around the obstacles and getting back to my route. I could not believe that I had not been doing this all along!

Ouachita National Forest and Robber's Cave State Park DS Ride

It was a great ride this weekend. I don't have a ton of photos but here are a few. The highlights of the ride were seeing a bear! That was amazing! Right off of Talahina Skyway about 30 feet off the road, the bear was just trotting along. I have never seen one in the wild and it was a great experience. I had a long debate as to whether or not I should stop and get a photo and decided that I did not care to be a potential meal on wheels.

As usual I got into some rough stuff a bit over my head. Unlike normal , I prevailed unscathed, or so I thought. When we went to load up the DRZ I found that some parts had vibrated off, nothing I can't replace though.

The water over the road was pretty deep. It was one of the deepest crossings of the day and by far the widest.









This was a quick family picture my wife snapped of my brother, parents, and myself.

 Camp life from a hammock perspective :D

This lake was my lunch spot on day two. It rained most of day 1 and so I have almost no pictures because it was simply too wet and my camera is not waterproof.

This was a "dead end" I did not mind in the least! It was beautiful!

The roads were in good shape some of the time! I didn't get pictures of the
ones that were washed out and rutted. I was a little too busy to get the photos.

Just a bridge I crossed early in the day 

The dam at Robber's Cave State Park

 This is the parking area at Robber's Cave.

 You could get gas and gamble at the same place just off of the skyway. I did neither but I did try out their other facilities and grab a quick snack.

Everything was a little wet but it was two great days of riding. I found some wonderful roads and some not so wonderful roads that were still a good time. I also found that the drz seat really is as awful as people say when you ride it for two full days. I think that next time the only thing I would do differently is perhaps camp right on the the skyway at Talahina State park or one of the others that were closer to the national forest or wolf pen.