Mississippi to Oklahoma on the Trans-America Trail
By Robert Flagler
June 2002

My son and I have set a goal of riding every inch of the Trans-America Trail created by Sam Correro. In 1997, my son, J P, left Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, riding a Honda XL 650. He rode the pavement all the way to Selmer, TN. At that point, he picked up the Trans America Trail and rode to Oklahoma. Together, he and I rode from Oklahoma to Utah. I needed to ride the east part of the trail.

Sam accommodated my need by setting up a Mississippi to Oklahoma ride in June of 1999. We began by meeting Sunday, June 20th, at the Ramada Inn in Greenwood, Mississippi. Sam introduced the other two riders that made up our original group. They were John Neff from Louisiana and Erv Daley from Florida. Sam and Erv had accompanied J P across Arkansas in '97 resulting in J P "warning" me about Erv. Erv was only seventy (70) years old but he had about eighty (80) years experience on a motorcycle. J P told me to not even try to keep up with Erv because he is a "motorcycle riding fool." Thisproved to be an accurate assessment. After the introductions and a brief meeting, Sam hauled us to The Crystal Grill, a legendary cafe, where we observed the Trans-Am Trail traditions of "eatin' good" and doing some hard "bench racing."

Monday morning, we trailer or rode our bikes to a farm that provided safe parking for the vehicles we left behind. Final preparations were concluded and we began our adventure. We worked our way north by northwest over Mississippi's twisting and turning, tree covered, rural rock road system. We passed through miles of kudzu, a dense, dark green vegetation Sam explained to be a foreign plant introduced to control erosion. It is now taking over the countryside. We sped along miles of straight, flat, rock topped levies. Our ride was broken up by stops in little hamlets that time has forgotten. We'd top our tanks, eat a stand-up lunch or snack, answer the inevitable questions from the locals about where we were from and where we were going, and then hit the trail again. The day's ride ended in the posh accommodations of the Isle of Capri Lady Luck Casino on the Mississippi River across from Helena, Arkansas. We were joined by our fifth rider, Mitch McDonald of Tennessee. A "killer" smorgasbord provided the best eats of the trip. The bench racing focused on the day's ride. John had topped a hill on an asphalt road that abruptly changed to gravel on an un-banked, ninety degree turn that presented him the opportunity of christening his new Kawasaki dual sport with his first slid out. I'd followed John and ended up avoiding him by taking a wild ride through the borrow ditch. Mitch recalled that the same site had provided a lot of excitement in an early ride. When we got through laughing at ourselves, we jumped Sam and told him to mark on his roll chart to give us a little warning next time. Erv had overshot one of the very few turns on the levies. He had to endure our questions attempting to dispel our disbelief that even Erv could experience the indignity of laying his bike down on the levy's grassy down slopes. I recounted that Erv had passed me going about seventy, had roosted me with a big levy rock greeting, and had displayed a fair share of daring-do sailing over the one lane strip of loose rocks. We did as much damage as five grown men can do to a smorgasbord, ran a load of laundry, and called it a day.

Tuesday morning began by crossing the Mississippi River to Helena, Arkansas, gassing up and heading northwest across Arkansas. Eastern Arkansas presents a uniformly beautiful cross section of rural Americana. Pleasant dirt roads meander from one little farm to another. The trail did take us through some talcum powder like roads that would raise dust fifty or sixty feet into a windless sky. The dust would just hang over the road. Sam assured us the dust was better than the end product that results if a little rain is mixed with this silt. His description of a bottomless, traction-less goo made us thankful for the dust, a feature in plentiful supply. Sam had us stop in a little dink creek to take some photos. When the photo session ended, the moss-covered rocks, street legal knobbies and a powerful Kawasaki engine conspired against poor John. The back end spun out and unceremoniously dumped our Louisiana hero in the drink. To add insult to injury, the bike went down with the top end pointed upstream so all his bags could take on an extra good supply of fresh "crick water." "Crick water" is heavy. It took John, Sam and me all three to bring the big dual sport upright. The job at hand increased in difficulty due to three more-than-petite men skidding around on the moss-slick rocks and laughing too hard to stand on even good footing. John wouldn't let us lay the bike back down for more pictures so we only have mental images of this Keystone Cops scene. We laughed and kidded each other about our ballerina skills and great motorcycle talents all the way to Clinton, Arkansas, the site of our second overnight.

Wednesday morning's breakfast was the last of the five of us being together. John pulled out to take the highway to Louisiana. John was replaced by a drought-breaking rain. The rain made many sections of the trail like a well-groomed motocross track after the water truck passes. Great traction let us swoop through the many curves and corners with the handlebars almost scraping the deck. Well, maybe the handlebars weren't quiet scrapping the deck, but I did put a lot more trust in my fifty/fifty tires and leaned a lot more than I had been leaning on the loose rock surfaces we'd been riding on the first two days. The rain made many of the sections of the trail like a pig trough full of slop. Several times Erv and I just stopped to observe the phenomena Mitch presented on his big BMW street bike equipped with knobbies. Mitch is about six foot three with a good five feet of that being legs. His big Bavarian monster would go fish-tailing from rut to rut through the quagmire with Mitch's legs sticking out from borrow ditch to borrow ditch. He looked like a giant spider crossing the swamp. Erv and I would wait, watch, point, laugh, and marvel until Mitch cleared the slop and then we'd go fish-tailing after him. At every stop, we'd try to tell him how funny he was and break down laughing at our own efforts to describe the scenes he presented. Noon brought us to another Trans-am Trail tradition, the cafe at Oark. Actually, the cafe IS Oark. Good grub, great Arkansas hospitality, and no high octane gas.

The afternoon saw us go down Warloop, the only section of the four day trail that even hints of "technical." It is an abandoned roadway that erosion has turned into a fun-to-ride boulder field. One spot is a perpetual mud hole, even in the height of Summer. Warloop is a pretty piece of Arkansas trail. You'd have to say the same for the whole day's ride. It was a trip through the Ozark National Forest's mountains, pine trees, rocky ascents and downhills, and one calendar picture after another of forest covered valleys and mountain tops. This is one of the best days the Trans-Am trail offers. Too soon, you end up in Alma, Arkansas, with a great day behind you. Mitch and I sat up late that night outside our motel rooms trying to out-lie each other about our motocross misadventures some twenty years prior. We both had puttered around on the old European bikes of that era and had some funny, funny stories involving blind luck and very little skill. Mitch set the high water mark with a story about a sharp turn onto a frozen mud hole followed by a 360 degree skidding turn that spit him out pointed the right direction down the trail just as if he'd practice just that maneuver a dozen times. Having spent the day watching my long legged friend navigate the mud, I got a very vivid picture of his icy whirly-doo. I couldn't top that story so we called it a night.

Thursday morning, Mitch left us. No more spider-legging it through the goo. There were jobs in Tennessee that needed his immediate attention. So, off he went, muttering something about getting a dirt bike before he tried this again. (He is now the proud owner of an XR 250, a bike way to little for his long legs.)

Erv, Sam and I headed North to Lincoln. We had to rely on Sam's maps to re-route us around a burned out bridge crossing a river Erv concluded was too deep and swift to try to ford. Hey, if Erv says "it ain't fordable," I, for one, am staying on the banks. We back tracked, looped over a nearby bridge and, soon enough, we were on the other side of the river ready to head on down the trail. Shortly before noon, we crossed into my home state. We rolled along on a tree-lined road that parallels the beautiful Illinois River, a tourist favorite.

As the morning ended, this pastoral scene began to fade rapidly. While John was replaced by a drought-ending rain, Mitch was replaced by a monsoon style deluge. The sky went from cloudy to dark to black. Erv and I broke out old-fashioned yellow slicker rain gear while Sam donned a bit of high fashion something advertised as "water resistant." We had no more than got our gear on when the bottom fell out. We quickly abandoned the trail and headed down a blacktop to the nearest civilization. Erv arrived in good shape thanks to his full face helmet and old-fashioned yellow slicker. My slicker and faded red bandana across my face got me there in good shape. The only resistant factor of Sam's gear was that it resisted letting the water back out after it funneled it in on him. His helmet and goggles protected what they covered but the rest of his face looked like a kid had been using his face for a pellet gun target. Of course, Erv and I barely mentioned the effectiveness of Sam's high-dollar, dapper attire. Hardly said a word while we waited and watched sheets and sheets of water cascade off the roof covering the porch of the isolated little convenience store somewhere in rural northeast Oklahoma. The water in the roadway got higher and higher until there was no new traffic coming along. We began scanning the horizon for an ark filled with pairs of animals. This was a serious rain. After a long, long wait, the rain abated to a "normal" rain, drizzle and/or mist. We decided to take the highway to a point where the trail goes through Salina since the trail along side the Illinois River would surely be under water. Off we went, having to ford several areas of water covering the highway. In Salina, we got the grim update on the weather. No end in sight. An executive session ended with a unanimous vote to officially end the June, 1999, Mississippi to Oklahoma ride on the Trans-America Trail.

Sam headed back on the highway to Mississippi. He reported later that he stopped at the first Wal-Mart where he bought a real rain suit and a face-covering, red bandana. Erv and I rode west to the fork in the road that would take him to Bartlesville where he had parked his RV. He reported later that he made it to his high school reunion where he successfully juggled several old girlfriends, and a few new ones, if I know Erv. I rode, in the rain, on the back roads to Norman, Oklahoma, to a welcoming wife who questioned the sanity of a husband that didn't have sense enough to come in out of the rain. The next morning, the newspapers reported flooding rains that covered the entire state all day long.

It was a great ride and a great adventure on the Trans-America Trail. I created memories I'll carry the rest of my life. I met some people I'll call friends the rest of my life.

 

 

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