July 13th 2019. Batesville MS to Clinton AR.

290 Miles. Hot and extremely dusty

We departed Batesville around 8am and within about 70 miles crossed the Mississippi river into Arkansas

Another 30 miles into Arkansas we came upon the famous TAT stop. The stop is now a landmark on the trail where hundreds of riders stop to meet Mr. Heidelberger. He is the proprietor and once avid adventure rider. He now sits in his outbuilding across from his house that was built in the 1930’s and is filled with items he has collected over the years. He takes photos of all of the riders in front of his place and each year has a photo book made.

Notice on the left of the building is the original jail cell from the local courthouse.

The TAT stop also handed out these great stickers:

The next 200 miles consisted of gravel roads that are extremely hard to ride. Arkansas loves gravel. Its deep and slippery for a dirtbike. The riding wears you out. We were both tired with about 30 miles to go when out of the blue Chris coming down hill into a left turn across a small bridge with a gap in the road. His front tire caught the gap causing him to slide off the road down into a 5 foot ditch.

We uprighted the bike and noted the bent shift lever. We did our best to straighten out the shift lever and limped into Clinton AR for the night.

We had one important thing to do before hitting the sack and that was laundry!

Tomorrow we head into Oklahoma.