KRATZMC

May 21^st, 2010 (Blue Knights Conference) Hot Springs Arkansas

Our first full day at the Conference started after a good nights rest and great weather. I ran into a fellow long distance rider, David Guzman of the Border Patrol. I had met David a couple of years ago at the Veterans Day Gathering in Deming, N.M. I recognized Dave’s white GL1800 by the Blue Knights decal on his rear trunk.

I also ran into Glen from Tavis County, a fellow Blue Knight from Chapter XIII and member of our Honda Meet Up group in Georgetown. Dougie, Glen and I joined the Members of Chapter XIII from Austin and had breakfast with them at the Pancake Shop. This is a great place to grab breakfast right in the heart of Hot Springs. Open since the 40’s, you can feel the old time breakfast house atmosphere.

The Host Chapter at the conference had prepared maps of six local rides so after breakfast, we decided to head to Petit Jean State Park for lunch.The ride would take us through the mountain roads and towns of Arkansas and lunch at the Mather Lodge. We decided to follow David and his companion, Ignacio, also with the Border Patrol. Both David and Ignacio were on Gold Wings with CB’s, so we let them take lead and rear. We let them know that Dougie and Glen would need gas soon, so we headed out onto the mountain roads.

With Ignacio in the lead, me, Dougie, Glen then David, I got lost in the beautiful scenery. All of a sudden, I saw Igancio pull over to the shoulder. I then noticed that no one was behind me. Igancio informed me that Dougie had run out of gas! Ignacio and I made a U-turn and found Dougie, Glen and David parked along the shoulder. Ignacio ran recon and found he could get some gas about ten miles down the road so started for the nearest fuel.

Houston, we have a problem

After 20 minutes Ignacio called to say he was back to our location with fuel but had to secure a fuel can. None of us had hoses. I usually have a siphon hose with hand pump but I had left it in my GS. David had parked his Wing behind our gaggle of bikes and left his emergency flashers on. Ignacio soon returned with the fuel in an anti-freeze jug but now we needed a funnel. No worries, I had three disposable paper funnels in my tool kit. We quickly refueled Dougie’s machine and were ready to go when David informed us his batter was dead. We weren’t getting very far, very fast.

David next to Dougie’s Hardly Drive-emson with Dougie sneaking into the foreground.

Okay, back into my tool kit for my motorcycle jumper cables. We used Dougies bike for the jump and David’s Wing was quickly back in action. We then learned that Ignacio lead us down the wrong highway, away from our lunch destination. Ignacio got frustrated and said these were all bad signs and that we should just go back but the rest of us wanted to press on. We quickly got back on track and back to Hwy 7.

Just a small sample of what Hwy 7 has to offer.

I asked Glen how much fuel he had and he said he could go 60 miles. Less than 15 miles later, Glen said he was running low on fuel!? Okay, back towards Hot Springs. We had to back track another 5 miles to a fuel station. As we pulled into the fuel station, Ignacio said “Later!” and decided to work on his motorcycle and relax. Now there were four.

The roads in Arkansas are extremely beautiful. For folks from the adjoining flat states, northern Texas, Oklahoma and Louisiana, it is a destination for great Motorcycle riding. Evidence was the fact I had just returned from a 5 day trip with my Honey Cecilia and Thom and Betsy Schumacher, last month. Back on track, we traversed the mountain roads. Just another 20 miles into the ride, we passed and accident scene, were a Motorcycle went off the road and down a steep embankment into the trees. We later learned it was one of the riders from Chapter XIII, who we had breakfast with. His Yamaha Cruiser is totaled and the rider received a case of road rash.

There was to be 5 Blue Knight related collisions that day. Two with vehicles pulling into the paths of the riders and 3 riders who failed to negotiate the curvy roads. 3 riders were hospitalized. Another rider following one of the members who collided with a car, was hit in the leg with a projected car part, breaking his ankle. Not a good day for some. No Honda’s went down.

After our scenic trek to Petit Jean Park, we reached Mather Lodge with a lunch and scenic view from their dining room. What a great destination for lunch and I highly recommend it if you ever make it this way. After our lunch, we headed back to Hot Springs for a Road Captains meeting which I planned to attend. Our ride took us through 168 miles of great roads.

The dinning room at Mather Lodge

My lunch at Mather Lodge, Mexican Soup…Umm good!

In the meantime, I was also awaiting some replacement screws for my Uni-go trailer hitch. The bolts had arrived but they were the wrong ones. Quicker inspection of my hitch, revealed that replacement bolts would not work and that I would have to make a spacer, or shorten two bolts so the receiver base would not work loose and induce the wobble I was experiencing with the trailer. I would reserve the next day to deal with the hitch and use the day to rest.

Margarita machine with Terkilla.

When I returned to the Hotel for the Road Captains meeting, we found a Margarita machine going full blast. I gotta get me one of them! The drink was refreshing as the temperature had risen into the mid 90’s. I made some new friends in the meeting and received requests from some others for information about Group Riding and a Pre-ride inspection check list I had made for my Chapter. We were supplied with free BBQ after the meeting and we let the day end with the swapping of lies and war stories in the parking lot.

Parking lot BBQ

After a stroll to the Dollar store to get some sundries, we retired for our second day in Hot Springs. I laid to rest from another adventuresome day. Now it was time to start thinking of my 3,200 mile run to Hyder Alaska…..

168 mile loop to Petit Jean State Park and Mather Lodge

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