Astronauts Wake Up.

Awakened this morning to Aerosmith's "Dream On" on my cell phone. Nice touch.

Got into Stillwell, OK about 8pm local time last night.. They roll the streets up early around here, nothing to eat except Mexican or McDonalds. Mexican won,,,, or did it!

Roughest day yet, we went through the trails the URAL is not supposed to make it through and even though we had to walk it up some steep ridges and ledges we made it.

The hardest parts yesterday were the "groomed" roads that the road graders left behind in far west Arkansas and Hurricane Creek road in the Ozarks. Hurricane Creel had miles and miles of rough washboard and fist sized rocks. The "groomed" or scraped roads were the worst on the Ural. The roads were about 3 inches deep in freshly tilled soil which hid the rocks. If you have ever ridden a sidecar rig up a steep incline it tends to pull hard towards the sidecar, where all the drag is. So it's a constant fight to keep it straight. The hidden rocks beat on us and the rig. At one point we went over a flat, plate sized rock that the front tire kicked out of the loose dirt and it jammed the underside of the bike so hard I figured the oil sump was crushed. It hit and wedged in so hard it lifted the entire back of the bike. It appears the center stand took the full brunt.