Long day of riding 47 miles. Arkansas was my favorite state so far for biking. We spent a lot of time on AR 82 and the road was often in good shape with a nice wide shoulder and a rumble strip between the shoulder and road. I was hopeful that TX 82 would continue the same but for the first 30 miles of today, that was not the situation. Although there continued to be a decent shoulder for most of it, the roads in TX were not nearly as nice. However, we were pleased to find that when we crossed into Red RIver County the roads got significantly better and I was happy once again. The shoulder and quality of roads are important as we are riding on essentially a highway with a speed limit of 70 mph. Both Sam and I were pleased with the courtesy of the trucks who generally move over to give us a wide berth.

Today we planned on meeting Marie somewhere in the 12-14 mile mark. We kept riding and finally stopped in New Boston, TX and checked our mileage which was at 17 miles. We called her to see where she was and make sure she was ok. Somehow and for the first time, we missed each other. We had a laugh about it and were happy that we just simply missed each other. We met in another 12 plus miles and had a nice lunch under a shade tree. We decided tp go as far as we could and stop around 1:45pm for a call which resulted in another 17 miles.

We then went to our B&B in Clarksville, TX, The Courthouse B&B. We are the only guests today and it is a charming place. We had a nice chat with the owner, Perry, (age 82) and his manager, Jill, and we are looking forward to a nice breakfast in the am. I am sitting on the wrap-around porch writing this at 7:45pm in 70 degree weather :).