Southern Hospitality

Let me first apologize for not posting in a while. We have been a little busy hanging out with great family and friends. I guess that's what happens when you finally reach some southern hospitality, filled with more food than the last supper. People in the south tend to want to feed two boys when they see them show up on bikes about 15 pounds lighter since the last time they saw us.

After getting a nice home cooked meal from Heather we settled in for the night and Kevin's. We were awoken by a torrent of rain getting drowned out by the pounding of hail against the sun light in the roof. The onslaught of weather hit around 8 am, right about the time we would be riding our bikes into Tulsa that morning had Heather and Jordan not picked us up. We keep getting lucky with the weather so far.

In Tulsa we were introduced to some of the best Mexican food we had since the border in San Diego at El Tequila. We also got to taste the Slurpee's Rival the QT Freezoni. I gotta say its a close race. Tara, Jordan and Heather gave a great night tour of the Oral Roberts campus. Their campus puts UF to shame in the way of landscaping and meaning behind everything on campus. It was absolutely beautiful, everything was a well manicured as a Country Club.

Kevin, Will, Jered and Anthony were nice enough to let us stay at their house or should I say 'Bachelor Pad.' We didn't do much their but watch TV and rest, exactly what the doctor ordered. The guys were all interested with our story and Kevin wouldn't let us tell any stories until he got back from McDonalds with $20 worth of Dollar Menu items that first night.

Waking around 5:30 on Wednesday we hit 77 miles to our campsite in Natural Falls of Siloam Springs. It was a great site with plush grass...something we hadn't seen the whole trip. The falls were about as accessible as a Disney Attraction. The whole thing had signs and fences keeping us from cleaning off in the fresh cold water. Instead we opted for an ice cold shower after snapping pictures.

Corey, our fraternity brother located in northern Arkansas was 40 miles from us. All it took was a call and we had a ride into town for some dinner at the La Huerta. Since the restaurant didn't serve alcohol (probably the only Mexican restaurant that didn't have any cervezas) we found a bar close by to hangout and have a drink before Clay and I had to make like Ol' Folks and be asleep by 9pm.

Waking again bright and early we knew we had a hard day to Van Buren, Arkansas through the Ozarks. The 2 hour climb to the top was rewarded by a nice 11 mile descent to the valley below. We stopped for water at a random home and the lady informed us there was a convenient store just about a mile up the road. We settled in there for a quick meal before getting rained in. We were supposed to meet Clay's family, Richard and Ann, just a few miles up the road but opted to have them drive it instead of us sitting in their car soaking wet.

Clay warned me we would be fed more than we could handle, and mind you we can put down some food after this ride, and he was right. We have been stuffed to the gills at every meal. We went to Brown's Catfish house where seafood is on buffet. Now, I'm not talking seafood like Morrison's, I talking good home cooked seafood. After we were already full, Pop, Clay's grand dad insisted we have a Cinnamon Roll AND an Ice cream cone. We do need to fatten back up so doing it in style is not a bad option.

We will be in Russellville for the next few days and heading out to Greenville on Monday.