We had to stop at Camp Wally in Russellville. The only campground in town we could find was full and my shoulders were shot from all the mountain driving I did on the way down from Branson. Maps are deceiving. What looks like a straight line on a map sometimes is a wicked series of switchbacks in real life. And since we choose to go on the back roads if we have a choice we pay the price occasionally.
We turned off of US-65 onto AR State Road 123 and was driving down some major twisty-turny narrow roads through some beautiful Ozark countryside when we came to a sign that said something about hairpin curves and no trucks. Of course, being a male, I blew right past it, confident I could take our 50 feet plus of vehicles around anything including hairpin curves. Nothing in Arkansas could equal those in Idaho, Montana, and Wyoming that we had experienced and survived. So I thought, but Seven wasn't so sure and made me take an ice cream bar break in a little bitty country store in Mt Judea. The young lady at the cash register said she was glad we stopped and came in because she and her friend were just talking about us and hoping we weren't heading down the road towards the curves. She said we wouldn't make it. So we turned around (after getting hung up in the post office parking lot and having to unhitched the toad) and headed back to the turnoff to AR State Road 374. Seven suggested we take a short cut on County Road 74. County Road? It looked like an overgrown driveway. 374 was a nice road but took us a tad out of our way. We finally got to AR State Road 7 and took off. I bet we averaged 35 miles an hour for the entire trip from Branson to Russellville. Was there one straightaway?
We didn't see much of Russellville. Camp Wally (US-64 and Elmira) was great. We were out back and it was quiet once the tire and lube area shut down for the night. We walked over to the nearby Ryan's Restaurant for supper. It stunk.
The next morning we had a quick breakfast and stopped at a food processing plant down the road from Camp Wally to see if they gave plant tours. They didn't so we hit I-40 to head for our next stop. My shoulders were too sore to do anymore mountain driving.
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