A little story about my weekend. The lovely wife and I took off for the Ozark Mountains, Boston Mountains, and Ouachita Mountains of neighboring Arkansas Saturday morning. We logged over 750 miles. The weather was perfect, and amazingly the traffic was mostly light. We drove all over the western/northwestern portions of Arkansas. The MINI was a blast! We blasted up and down mountains, it was twisty heaven. We spent Saturday night at the Queen Wilhimena state park a very nice place for that part of Arkansas; it is a state park. The parkway stretches from Mena Arkansas to Talihena Oklahoma. At one point close to Mena you can see 3 beautiful S curves with a drop on one side and the mountain up on the other. Simply awesome. Would make some incredibly MINI movies. Unfortunately, I was way to involved in blasting thru them to stop and take photos. Sunday we hit the road at 8am towards Oklahoma. We had this mountaintop twisty slice of heaven completely to ourselves. If you are in this area, you must take a sidetrip and drive this road. Arkansas is full of wonderful drives. I can't tell you how many motorcycles I saw this weekend, as the Harley, BMW, and crotch rocket boys and girls were out in droves. Sunday after lunch we were driving on Highway 23 heading towards Eureka Springs from the south when I caught up with a guy in a brand new Corvette. We went blasting thru the twisties him in front me behind until he decided to stop because he couldn't shake me ever. I think he was a frustrated new Corvette owner. If I kept the revs up strong he didn't even pull me coming out of the corners significantly. It was a blast. My wife threatened me at one point that if I didn't slow down in the corners she was going to punish me by throwing up in the car. Fortunately, she was joking because I had made her take Bonine before we left home! Gotta plan for every contingency.

A couple of things that I noticed... the window/front end are bug killing things. I can't describe the number and types of insects that I murdered this weekend. When I was washing the car last night I had to spray the radiator and intake to remove the bugs killed on them. The MINI S doesn't have much pulling power in 5th or 6th gear in the mountains. The computer said I averaged over 31 mpg, but by calculations just less than 30. Which considering how I drove this is very good. I drive in 6th a lot, unless I am in a spirited section and generally keep the revs down, but when the situation calls for it I will let the rpms hit 6k. Lots of smiles, waves, and what is its from the folks. The best one though was from a young kid in a Golf GTI telling me that my MINI Cooper S was awesome.

jc

 

Sounds like you had a great time,jc. May have to check out that part of Arkansas very soon. I too have numerous varieties of bugs on Louie from the weekend rally.Need to do a thorough wash job later today! The St Louis club is planning on meeting the KC club in Columbia on May24. No details yet but probably will go.
Happy Motoring
Lois

 

Well in keeping with your habit of sampling the local wineries ... I can recommend the Les Borgeuis (spelling?) in Rocheport, Missouri. The wines are excellent and the restaurant is spectacular. I stopped several times to remove bugs from the windows. It is so bad I think I need tearaways like they use in Nascar!

jc

 

Let me know if you are spending the night in Rocheport as I can recommend a nice bed and breakfast. That weekend is Memorial weekend, and short of nuclear war we always do the lake thing at Tablerock that weekend.

Also, if you head towards Arkansas, I can give your itinerary some tweaking based on years of local knowledge.

jc