Collecting stamps

I went for a little 220-mile jaunt today to get a couple of stamps in my National Parks Passport.

Today’s ride took me up to Van Buren, Mo. to the Visitors Center of the Ozark National Scenic Riverways.

I left the Citgo station down the road from our house at 9 a.m. and arrived at the visitors center about 11 a.m.

I got my stamps and, as I was shooting the photo above, Bill Hutchinson, a Floridian hauling a red BMW R1100RS in his pickup truck, drove up with his wife on a similar quest.

Bill offered to shoot a picture of me with my bike and the visitor center in the background and we ended up in a pleasant 10-minute chat about BMWs, the BMWMOA, and, of course, great roads. Bill and his wife are headed for Rocky Mountain National Park where I sang the praises of the Trail Ridge Road.

The Ozark NSR is the nearest passport stamp location in an online database I downloaded to my Garmin Zumo 550. I also consulted a similar database for McDonald’s restaurant and found the listing for Van Buren to be off by about a mile.

I took a few minutes for a double cheeseburger and water (lunch for under $2), then hit the road for home, stopping for gas south of Poplar Grove, Mo. and rolling into my garage at 1:54 p.m.

It was hardly an epic journey, but it was fun riding to somewhere new.