The Journey to and from the 2013 USCA National Rally

The Journey to and from the 2013 USCA National Rally ...

by way of Hollywood.

On the way up Wednesday morning, Jena & I met up at the Railroad Cafe' in Prescott, Arkansas with Texas sidecarists Charlie on his Ural w/UniGo trailer and Art on his HD w/sidecar trailer, who was traveling with wife Rosa and their daughter Paula.  I warned our group that I planned a small excursion down a dirt road at Shirley to explore an old rail bridge that had been converted to an auto bridge.  After dodging a few bumps and potholes, we found the former Missouri & North Arkansas Railway c.1908 bridge spanning the Little Red River:

We failed to get a photo that really sets the scale of this bridge, but it's so narrow that Charlie and Art wouldn't even dis-mount their rigs for a photo.  Now I want to go back and explore the county road that follows a similar path along the river as the former railway:

 Charlie & I checked out the Swinging Bridge near Allison after venturing out to pick up the group tickets for Blanchard Springs Caverns:

  And, yes, I did manage to navigate around the big gap in front of the rig:

On our way back home, we visited Prim, Arkansas, to the delight of a few old high-school friends (has to do with a nick-name, and no, nothing at all the do with "prim & proper" - short for "primitive," like the primitive caveman watching out for the dinosaurs trying to get him):

We saw where fellow sidecarist J.R. may have BBQ House in Greers Ferry:

After stopping for late breakfast at the Overcup Diner, we ventured to my favorite scenic spot in Arkansas, the Petit Jean Mountain look-out over the Arkansas River:

And, yes, we really did visit Hollywood on the way home :

 And speaking of celebrities, we detoured thru Delight, Arkansas, the hometown of Glen Campbell:

Our last stop on the way home was for ice cream at Burge's in Lewisville, Arkansas - a welcome break from the summer afternoon:

A great rally, and a great journey.

Great pix,
Looks like some fun side trips. I always seek out oddball bridges. After 45 years of working high steel, building, repairing and painting bridges I never tired of them.

Lonnie

Lonnie, I too like to seek out old/odd bridges and old/interesting communities.  The side trips only added 60+ miles to our return route.  Some of these treasures are getting hard to find tho -- we found 2 old store buildings stripped or demolished within the past 8 months:

All the old signs & tools have been removed from this old store at the Oglee crossroads in Louisiana -- nothing but a bare, empty building remains (pic from November 2012):

And this general mercantile store building in Antoine, Arkansas has now been complete demolished (pic also from November 2012):

It seems the old bridges are often down gravel/dirt roads, which is a primary reason for recently acquiring the new SwampFox rig, one of Claude & company's CSM/GS rigs purchased from a gentleman up in Pennsylvania -- with a big thanks to Claude for helping facilitate delivery/shipping of the rig :

SwampFox - 6/30/2013 9:04 AM: ... It seems the old bridges are often down gravel/dirt roads, which is a primary reason for recently acquiring the new ... rig....

... now christened the SwampFox:

Swampfox...your rig is simply PostCard beautiful...like a wondrous statue or painting.