We started the day off with a breakfast at the Home Sweet Home
Donut Shop. Wow, did they have donuts! Ever have a key lime pie donut? Michele
and Rob opted instead for an egg sandwich each, fruit smoothie for Michele, and
Jerry sampled a donut. We joked that it would be impossible even to choose a
dozen from among the 30 options.
After breakfast, we packed up the bikes and headed north
along US-7. At around 10am when Michele asked Rob “This sign says the gateway
to Vermont. Are we close to Vermont?” we crossed into Vermont. Michele didn’t
have the camera ready since Rob did not warn her. Nevertheless, we were in Vermont! A new state!
We rode across VT-9 through the Green Mountain National Forest. In Wilmington,
VT we picked up VT-100. About 20 miles up VT-100 we started seeing detour and
road closed signs. Uh oh! The bridge spanning a river was being repaired so we
had to turn around. At this point Rob said “I don’t know what we’re going to do
now.” Never a comforting statement. We headed back to Weston where there was a
small general store, pulled over and checked the maps to figure out the best
detour.
In the parking lot of the general store, a nice man asked if
we were looking for the route 100 North detour. Certainly with our VA plates
and bewildered look about us, he took charity and gave us directions on the quickest way around
the closed bridge. He said he was also out riding around for the day. He asked
us where our destination for the trip was. We told him that we were heading for
Acadia NP and then on into Canada to ride the Cabot trail and Prince Edward
Island. He said, “Oh wow! So you guys are going to be riding for a month or
so?” Yea, we wish! When we told him our trip was only 2 weeks he was surprised.
He obviously has never ridden with Rob before!
With our detour now planned, we headed west along Chester
Mountain Road which connected with VT-11 and took us into Chester, VT. From
there we picked up VT-103 and that brought us back to VT-100 on the other side
of the closure.
We realized around this time that we were grossly behind schedule
for the day. We forgot to check our departure time, thinking it was 9am but it
should have been 8am. Then the detour and a few rest breaks put us about 2
hours behind. Our planned lunch stop was well over an hour away and it was
nearing 2pm!
We stopped in Ludlow, VT for lunch when Michele said “Stop
here. Now. Pizza.” We found a local pizzeria and shared a pizza that had a surprisingly
good, crispy crust.
Rejuvenated by food and needing to make progress on our
route, we made our way into New Hampshire. We were surprised to ride right
through the center of the Dartmouth campus. The Wing went Ivy League! None of
us realized we would be taking that route until we zoomed through the very
middle of the quadrangle of campus. Very cool!
Our route then took us into the White Mountain National
Forest along Sawyer Highway. Sawyer Highway was in horrible condition!
The winters do terrible things to the roads here. This road
has the fine distinction of being the second worst road we have ever ridden.
Second only to US-89 between Yellowstone NP and the Great Teton NP back in
2009. That road had been completely removed leaving only a muddy bomb crater
surface to slip, slide, and bounce across.
Our kidneys and tooth fillings a little worse for wear from
the horrible road surface we wound our way through the White Mountains and past
the Mount Washington Hotel. This hotel is quite the spectacular building, built
from 1900-1902. With about 15 horses out front, Michele questioned why we had
not considered staying here, only 30 minutes from our destination for the day.
We pushed on our final miles to Gorham, NH (today’s destination)
arriving at around 6:45pm. We checked into the motel and walked down to a
nearby restaurant that was recommended by the motel manager. The food was very
good and it was nice to have a short walk before and after dinner after riding
(bouncing?) all day long.
We had a few nice surprises today despite the bad roads:
drifts of purple lupines in the meadows, a handful of covered bridges, cool-looking
barns, a few quirky buildings, shady temps up in the mountains, and the
mountains themselves much taller and majestic than we expected.
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