Rome was not ridden in a day

 

Friday, April 24, 2009

Finishing up Highway 10 West.

A few days ago I went for a ride to complete Hwy 10. I had ridden it from Little Rock to Booneville, this trip was to take it to Oklahoma and hit a few roads on the way back. The weather was great at around 70 to 80 degrees with very little wind.

I first went to Dardanelle, then traveled Hwy 27 to Danville, then Hwy 10 all the way to Oklahoma. After that I doubled back and traveled on Highways 45, 96, 71, 252, Old 10, 60, and back onto Hwy 10 for the trip home.

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I passed the above scene just East of Blue Mountain. The Mountain in the background is Mt. Magazine.

After arriving in Greenwood, Ar. I noticed this Tank (a M-41 Walker Bulldog) across from the city center park. Which was a good thing, because thats when I noticed the museum which can be seen under the gun barrel.

This is the old Greenwood jail and museum complex which consists of among other things, the jail, a cabin, an old barn, an old church, a famous grave stone and a miner memorial.



The old cabin and water well.



The old barn with carriage under the overhang.



This is the old church.


This was in the city center park. I don't really understand what its referring to. A guy lived a long time, was in the civil war and maybe he was a Senator. I'm not really sure. Heres what I found after researching.
The Miner Memorial, with a lot of names on the two walls.

Awesome minor statute.

If you double click on the pic you can probably read the memorial.

The next three pics are Hwy 45 going south towards Hartford, Ar. This one is up the hill and the next is.....

down the hill and after a long curve to the right then another uphill, its over the top and ...

back down again. I believe that is Sugarloaf Mt. in the distance.



The town of Hartford, it was here I turned left on hwy 96 to go towards Mansfield, Ar. Hartford is a very sleepy old town. Lots of old houses, a wide street which at one time was probably busy with traffic. The most exiting thing in town this day was the girl seen to the right that came out of her old downtown house to argue with her boyfriend.


This is the Hartford miner memorial, or part of it. Two rock walls with rock seats inside, and a ghost that can be seen in the left corner :(.

After traveling through Mansfield and Huntington, I took 252, a really cool road going through farm land with lots of curves and scenery. After making a right on Old Hwy 10, I found these Buffalo.

This would have been a good pic, but as luck would have it, a gray bar turned up at the bottom.


This was taken at the old Booneville watershed lake. Its a big lake with bluffs on one side, looks like there might be some good fishing. Its a quiet lake, there were only a few people fishing. Old Hwy 10 eventually turned into Hwy 60 when state maintenance took over.
When I arrived in Danville after a cool liesurely ride East on Hwy 10 I stopped at the Vientiane Restaurant. It has Laos, Thai,Indian, and Chinese dishes. I chose the Chicken with yellow curry, jasmine rice and an order of three spring rolls. I hadn't eaten since breakfast and it was 7 pm. I ate all but two spring rolls, they were good the next day for lunch. I would recommend this place to anyone that likes good oriental food.
In case anyone really wanted to know. Vientiane is the capital city of Laos. The name of the city is derived from Pali, the liturgical language of Theravada Buddhism. Its original meaning is "royal sandalwood grove" or "city of sandalwood", this tree being highly valued in classical India for its fragrance. In modern Lao, the meaning of Vientiane is ambiguous, and is often mistakenly believed to mean "city of the moon", because the words for 'moon' and 'sandalwood' are written and pronounced identically. However, the name in Thai, เวียงจันทน์, retains the etymologically correct spelling, and clearly indicates "city of sandalwood" as the meaning. The romanized spelling "Vientiane" is of French origin, and reflects the difficulty the French had in pronouncing the hard "ch" sound in the Lao word; a common English-based spelling is "Viangchan", or occasionally "Wiangchan". Was that interesting or what?
There is a new Laos/Thai Restaurant in Russellville, its called "Kob Jai" which means "thank you" in Laotian. Its good also, I've eaten there several times.

Todays ride was a good one, full of good scenery, history, good roads, great weather and exploration.