The cold nights continue. We had a small snack for breakfast and had plans to go out to Pizza Hut for lunch today when we got to the town of Harrison. With that to motivate us, we got everything packed and headed out of Alpena. From where we camped, we had about 11 miles to go to get to Harrison. On the way out of town, we had a nice hill to get us warmed up. The wind was against us today, so it we didn't get there as fast as we would have liked; I guess one day of a tailwind yesterday was all we were going to get. A little bit before we got to town we stopped at a visitor center/ Arkansas Welcome center. The people working inside were pretty interested in our trip and asked us a few questions. There was free coffee and candy to snack on; we even got a free little Arkansas pin that we put on Joey's handlebar bag. Excited about our lunch, we headed off again. We got to town at 10:30, just a half hour before the buffet usually starts, so we made a stop at McDonald's to use the internet. Then, off to get our bellies full of salad and pizza! It was wonderful, especially since they made a pizza on request- a pepperoni and mushroom pan pizza. I think between the two of us we ate almost that entire pizza. By the time we left it had warmed up a little, almost to the point that we thought we might not need to wear our face masks! After a little bit of flat-ish road for a while, we had a bit of climbing as we went back into the Ozark mountains. Those miles went by quite a lot slower, but the wind didn't seem to be as much of a problem anymore. We passed through a couple of very tiny "mountain towns" along the way. After quite a lot of climbing, we got to enjoy a nice long descent into the little town of St. Joe- "the heart of the Ozarks." It had a little gas station we could take a quick break at. When I pulled in, a couple minutes after Joey, I heard a little voice say "there's the person in second place. Joey had been talking to a little boy that was at the gas station on his bicycle. The boy said that not too many cyclists come through here and so he was surprised to see us. It was pretty cute because while Joe was waiting for me and also talking on the phone, the little boy would follow him around. Gotta love little kids! After leaving St. Joe we had another long uphill, then a downhill to where we crossed the Buffalo National River, and then another long uphill as we climbed back out of the river valley. Once we got to the top of that next climb, we could see the beautiful sunset. We were just under 10 miles away from the next town where we planned to stay, so we weren't too worried that we wouldn't make it before it was completely dark. Another long downhill and then a long stretch of flat road. We had one last hill to climb up and over before getting to Marshall. At that point it was dark enough that I would need my tail light on so people would see us. Luckily it wasn't that big of a deal that it had gotten that close to dark because we had a nice big shoulder to ride on and there really wasn't that much traffic. Upon getting to town, we stopped at the McDonald's- which we were very surprised to see, to fill up on water and check to see if any of the hosts we had emailed for Little Rock had responded. On the way into town, we passed a church that was off the road quite a bit and also had a nice overhang in case it were to rain. We decided to ride the short distance back to that church and stay there for the night. We were very lucky because our phones were dead and they happened to have an outdoor outlet that where we could charge them for a little bit, just in case we might need them later on. Going out for the buffet for lunch made it really relaxing this evening. We were still nice and full from the buffet, so we didn't need to worry about cooking or cleaning for dinner- that's one of the best parts of buffets is that they easily end up serving as two meals, if not three (as we didn't really have any breakfast this morning). Tonight was a great night- we were actually feeling comfortable outside of our tent. It was still cold, but we weren't shivering and could actually tolerate it without any problem. Hopefully this is a good sign for the nights to come! Our miles totaled 54.47 today. We did alright, but were again slowed down by the wind and then the hills following that.
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