OMG Gravel

After a very noisy night of camping at Storm Creek (I had to wear ear plugs all night because of the bugs) I hit the road to Helena Arkansas. I was looking for somewhere to grab breakfast, preferably with a restroom where I could clean up a bit. No showers at Storm Creek. There's not a whole lot of choice around those parts so I stopped at McDonalds. As I was dehelmeting a guy came up and asked my where I was going. I told him about the TAT and he mentioned he ran into a few guys a couple of days ago doing the same thing. A bit more chatting and I headed in.
As I was drinking my coffee an older local started chatting with me. I told him about the trail but he seemed more interested in telling me about all the famous people from the area. Turns out Conway Twitty grew up in Turkey Scratch right up the road (I rode through later in the day). I asked him about the best way to get to a road which was on the trail. He told me the fastest way but then told me there were too many blacks that way and I should go down the road further. That was my first, and hopefully last, experience with southern racism. I excused myself and started gearing up again. As I was about to put my helmet on friendly local number three starts chatting with me. He mentioned his son had heard of the trail and was planning on doing it. The TAT seems fairly well known around here which is kind of cool.
Out of spite for the racist guy I rode through the area with "too many blacks" and was back on the trail. The gravel roads seem particularly bad around here. It seems like many were freshly graveled so there's no good path through it. All you can do is chug along and hold on. Near the end of one of the gravel roads I saw a hand painted sign for the trans america trail. I of course stopped to see what it was about. A local family had noticed all the bikes going by and asked some riders what it was about. They've totally embraced it. The son fixed up the old building next to the trail and it's now kind of a museum. Dad hands out there in the mornings welcoming riders and offering them water and a place to rest for a bit. They also have a log book for riders to sign. One of the other locals checks up on ADVRider to see everyone's progress. All very cool.
After some more brutal gravel I stopped at Bendi's Diner for lunch and to fill up the tank. I skipped a bit of trail to let lunch settle and then I was back to it. The only water crossings today were flooding from farm fields. On the gravel roads it wasn't too bad.
By about 4:30 I was done and decided to take highways to Beebe and find a hotel. After two days of heat in the 90s I was really looking forward to a shower. The first hotel was full, so I went across the road to the cheaper Budget Inn. After a quick shower I walked next door to the Exxon for water and saw that it was a really good idea to hotel it tonight. There's currently a massive storm blowing through with thunder and lighting like I've never experienced. If it's not raining, I'll check out the trail and see what the rain did to the roads. I may have to spend a day or two on highways while things dry out.

Update: Just as I hit "publish" for this post my phone gave me my third severe thunderstorm warning of the trip. The first two were in Pennsylvania.

Update 2: The rain let up a bit so I walked back to the Exxon to buy a beer. It turns out Beebe is in a dry county. Thank goodness for the sacred Nalgene bottle.