Today’s Mileage: 323 miles
Total Trip Mileage so far: 579 miles
Day 2 and it is off to find some back roads in Arkansas – I had read that there was a road called the “Pig Trail” that was supposedly the Arkansas equivalent of Tennessee’s Tail of the Dragon. Since the Pig Trail runs north and south and starts up around Harrison, I cut cross country to the north west to the start of it. When I finished it looked like I would be in position to spend the night at Fort Smith. It was a nice, pleasant ride over to Harrison although the faint tones of banjo music seemed to get louder as I neared the start of the Pig Trail (Hwy 23). The Pig Trail was certainly a nice road and extreme scenic with very little traffic…but equivalent to TofD? Nope, nowhere near as intense – more of a relaxed version. But it was certainly a good start to the trip and gave me a chance to see how the KTM handled a “Ducati” road. Mr KTM handled it just fine, its a keeper.
It was late when I finished up so I jumped on I-40 for a few miles to get into Fort Smith for the night. I am thinking that this trip I will make use of occasional stretches of interstate to avoid taking extra hours just to stay on backroads – that will give me more time for the good stuff. And as I head west, even the back roads are straight and flat in places.
Tomorrow I plan a return visit to the Seaba Station Motorcycle Museum near Chandler, OK and to ride a section of old Route 66.
