Bicycling Florida to Texas
Through
Alabama, Mississippi,
Arkansas & Oklahoma
2008 - May - June
Thursday, June 19, 2008
Mount Ida to Mena AR
Distance: 39.1 Miles
This morning we left the motel and walked the bicycle up the hill to the local restaurant for a good breakfast. Today was another fun day going up and down hills although in the middle of the day they were more like rollers. It was a lot cooler today; Mary Kay even wore an extra layer for the first 10 miles. The first big hill of the day occurred a very short distance outside Mount Ida. We started at less than 700 foot elevation and at the top were over 940 foot elevation. A portion of the climb was so steep we had to walk the bicycle. Near the top of this climb was an overlook where you could see for miles.
At midday we stopped in Pine Ridge where there was a museum dedicated to the actors and the 6 movies based on the characters Lum and Abner. In this museum is a working post office that has been in existence since 1886. It has been run in the same location since its start.
About 5 miles out of Pine Ridge we had our second front flat tire. This was a slow leak but we found a nice fence to lean the bicycle against in the shade while we changed the tire. The last two hard climbs occurred just before we reached Mena. The first climb took us up to an elevation of 1,125 feet and the second took us up to an elevation of 1,275 feet. All day we had several short but steep climbs that required us to walk the bicycle up them.
We reached Mena around 1:00 to learn there is a convention of the Christians Motorcycle Association here Friday and Saturday, so we were lucky to find a room in a very nice motel for this evening but we will need to move to another motel tomorrow. We hope it is as nice as this one. We enjoyed a swim in their pool before we walked down the hill to a local café for supper.
| 