Oct 27-Nov 4: Layover to Texas

After wrapping everything up at our first laser job in Indiana late on Friday evening, we hit the road toward Dallas, Texas for our second laser job. We needed to arrive by Monday evening, giving us just three days to drive 15 hours, do laundry, buy groceries, get some riding in, and attempt to relax a bit after our first long week in a machine shop. Luckily, we were driving through familiar territory to get from Indiana to Texas, and could make the most out of our short break.

On Saturday we stopped in Saint Louis to once again visit our friends Kris and Sara. This time we hit the Greensfelder trail system, a jumble of fun criss-crossing cross-country trails that I'm glad we had a tour guide for. The trails are well marked, but there are a lot of intersections which makes wayfinding a little cumbersome for out-of-towners. With our limited time, it was great to just follow along as our friends led the way! We stayed on the more technically challenging trails for a Saturday sesh-fest, taking turns attempting different lines up and down the rocky, chunky, sections.

After riding, we had to quickly say farewell and keep moving toward Texas. We made it down to Bentonville, Arkansas on Sunday afternoon and decided to try out the trails we missed our first time in town. Unfortunately, the trails we had heard such great things about, Choo-Choo and Boo-Boo, appeared to be a little neglected and left us underwhelmed. These were intended to be fast and smooth beginner flow trails and were probably a riot when they first opened, but erosion and brake bumps had left bomb holes in all the berms, and the endless supply of marble-sized rocks that were normal for the area made it challenging to maintain speed on the slight grade. I'm hopeful that after the explosion of new trails in the area tapers off, the local trail crews can focus on just a little maintenance in this area, making the existing trails all that they can be, and more!

The redeeming part of the lower Slaughter Pen area is All-American. This trail provides access from downtown Bentonville to the rest of the Slaughter Pen trails (and beyond) and is an absolutely amazing beginner trail! Without much elevation, it flows well in either direction, and is smooth but just twisty enough to keep things fun and interesting. The main trail has no obstacles or features to scare off new or young mountain bikers, but there are plenty of optional logs, rocks, skinnies, and small jumps off to the side of the trail for kids of all ages to play on and practice their skills. The faster you go, the more challenging it gets. Just keep an eye out for other trail users, especially kids!

All-American was too fun to stop and pull out the camera, so here are some photos of the features on All-American courtesy of www.arkansasoutside.com (left) and wesleyhitt.photoshelter.com (right).

We followed the All-American trail downtown, grabbed a quick ice cream cone from Walton's Five and Dime, and pedaled back to the van just before sunset. We took advantage of the Bentonville Visitor Center's offer for RVer's to spend a night in their parking lot, then chatted with the host to snag some free coffee in the morning and hit the road once again.

$1.35 waffle cones? Yes please!

The drive from Bentonville to Dallas quickly became an extremely boring one as we made it out of the woods and hills of Northwest Arkansas and into the flat empty prairies of northern Texas. When we finally made it into town around rush hour on Monday evening, we immediately remembered why we had wanted to escape big cities and the daily grind. Navigating the spaghetti of highways amidst a sea of cars and semi-trucks operated by zombies trying to unwind by checking Facebook or Tinder while driving home after a long day at the office was exhausting, to say the least. We finally made it to our destination unscathed and enjoyed some delicious local tacos before hitting the hay at a relatively quiet Wal-Mart near where we would be working.

Over the next week we followed our colleague, Charlie, around to a couple of different machine shops and learned as much as we possibly could about laser cutters, taking lots of notes and spending a few late nights troubleshooting issues. One evening when we escaped work with a few hours of daylight to spare, we headed to the closest thing to a park we could find in the area: a small greenspace lacking all amenities, not even a bench anywhere in sight, tucked snugly under a tollway overpass. We ate dinner on the step of the van door enjoying the sunshine and warm weather, and were surprised at the lack of park patrons in this densely populated area.

Despite the excellent Mexican food we experienced in Dallas, we were extremely happy to wrap up our week of work and escape back to the open road! We made plans to hurry over to Sedona, Arizona (one of the mountain biking meccas in the U.S.) where we could meet up with a friend who was there on vacation and willing to show us around.

On Friday we made it up to Wichita Falls, Texas, where we tried to get some sleep at the loudest Wal-Mart ever! All evening, Hitchcock inspiring flocks of constantly chattering birds stuffed the handful of trees scattered around the parking lot and peppered the pavement with droppings. When they finally took off in the wee hours of the morning, we were woken up by a street sweeper cleaning up after them at 3am, followed promptly by the landscaping crew armed with weed wackers at 4am. Needless to say, we took the liberty of sleeping in.

When we finally got moving on Saturday morning, we continued driving slowly across Texas. (Holy crap this is a big state!) We stopped for breakfast at a small park on the side of the highway, where we were immediately greeted by an entourage of apparently well-fed ducks waiting tentatively for handouts.

These little guys came up to greet us as soon as we pulled into the park, and hung around until they finally realized we wouldn't be sharing our breakfast with them.

Taking turns every few hours, and stopping occasionally to eat or stretch our legs, we kept driving without incident, but without any scenery either.

A giant cotton field was the most exciting thing we saw for about 12 hours...

After the sun had set and the darkness settled in, we made it as far as we could before we were too tired to safely continue, and called it a night at a Wal-Mart somewhere in the middle of New Mexico.

...next stop: out west!