Day 13 - Portland, ME to Matamoras, PA

The day dawned brightly, and we dreaded it. Who wants to acknowledge, nay face, the end of a wonderful vacation. Pointing the bikes south meant that it was real and we were heading towards home. Sure we had a few more things to see on the way down. But the excitement is always tempered by the weight in the back of my mind that real life will soon be intruding. (Not to mention that I also get a little paranoid of heading towards home after this great an excursion, knowing how many accidents occur on the way home. I don't want to end up a statistic in that table.)

Today was going to be a long day. Best just to get it started.

Of course, the quickest way out of Dodge (Portland) is by toll charged Interstate 95. Taking any other road would have meant traffic and stoplights. You are kinda stuck paying that toll. Sigh. To boot, we paid that toll for 10+ miles of "dangerous to motorcycle" grooves. What fun!! (Not!)

All too soon we crossed the Maine border once again and traipsed into New Hampshire. We have officially entered New Hampshire more times than Maine on this trip. Were you aware that I-95 is only in New Hampshire for 15.38 miles? In the blink of an eye we are into a completely new state, a state that we haven't ridden in! We are now traveling along in Massachusetts. Many times on this trip we have had people warn us about drivers from Massachusetts. They have been non-affectionately called "MASSholes". Our experiences luckily did not reveal any to us (on this trip). But with as much as we wanted to spend time in Boston, neither of us wanted to ride our motorbikes in that city. ;)

Soon enough we reached another border and another first state: Connecticut.

In all, this was a rather humdrum kind of day. We managed about 335 miles (540 km) of boring interstates to get us well on our way towards Shenandoah National Park. The GPS made a couple great recommendations around some cities. Seemed to save us some downtown construction zones that I didn't mind missing.

Our only excitement came in the form of an older gentleman that joined our riding party. He was returning to his wife in Florida after visiting his brother in New Hampshire. He came with crutches and a handicap plate on his motorbike. We probably rode together about 150 miles, he even called it a day it Matamoras with us. However, he wasn't inclined to spend the money on the Best Western that we had chosen. We said our good byes and good lucks and discussed the possibility of running into each other on the morrow. However, given that we were thinking if taking some backroads in the morning, we didn't think it was likely.

Statisics-wise this was a most interesting day. We rode in 6 states today, and two of them were for the first time: Maine, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Connecticut, New York, and Pennsylvania.  (Yes, we were only 1 mile into Pennsylvania, but it was a border crossing!) We wished we could have found the time and excuse to hit Rhode Island. I think it will be a long time before I can cross that state off the list that have been under my two wheels.


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Please zoom the map out. I can't seem to figure out how to have it show a larger area!

Day 4 - Toms River, NJ to Franconia Notch, NH

Day 4 dawned bright and shiny. The rain storms that ripped through the area last night had cleaned everything up and left huge puddles to play in. In addition to becoming a source of the oppressive humidity! Uncovering the bikes we could see the seats and saddlebags dotted with water. Indicating how strong the winds were last night, flinging rain under the covers,

Today was going to be the most difficult day of the journey so far. We needed to get up to New Hampshire. It was doable, but ambitious. My major oversight was New York City. I was taking us from New Jersey to New Hampshire in a day. A Monday...through rush hour traffic...near New York City.


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Jack had some alternate suggestions that Oilburner and I researched on the maps last night. And my secret source in Maine also had some ideas. Since the George Washington Bridge is going through some major construction, traffic was going to be bad. Both sources recommended the Tappan Zee Bridge north of the city. This route appealed to me since that is probably the closest I will ever get to taking my bike to the city. (At least until Jack leads a tour to Boulevard East.). However, the sedate tollway up to Albany, NY won out. Our logic was hoping there would be fewer cars and fewer police to impede a speedy jaunt. We experienced empty roads with the New York state tollways five years ago. Just hoping for the same.

On a side note, I will be forced to go back to this area some time. The Village of Sleep Hollow is near the Tappan Zee on the east shore. Sleepy Hollow! Gotta go! Washington Irving is interred there. I need to go exploring. Maybe sit on some inn balcony at midnight, sipping something warm, watching for any nocturnal happenings.

Overall the day was long and completely in eventful. Sweet. We did leave "later" to hopefully miss the large portion of traffic. We went out of our way to scoot west around New York City. New York was where we first encountered frost heaves. Wow! Those are nasty. I do not recommend hitting one of those while performing a shoulder check. Talk about vertigo. Since I forgot to look up Orange County Choppers we discovered 3 miles too late that we had missed it. Those 3 miles equate to 30 miles on the tollway because we would have to ride to the next exit to get off and turn around. Our pocketbook didn't want to face the tolls.

As I said, nothing happened. We rode...

We ate...

We fueled. Someone adorned my bike with flowers...

We rode some more...

I routed us through the Green Mountains of Vermont. Beautiful, but not nearly as isolated as you might think while riding along. We were enjoying the beautiful trees, river, and flowers without seeing a single settlement. Looking at google maps later revealed a fairly large city right on the other side of the ridge.

We eventually arrived at our destination after 430 miles (690 km). It was a small inn at Franconia Notch of the White Mountains in New Hampshire. (See map above.) So many places were booked up and I found this place advertising on Airbnb.

The inn was wonderful! It was a grand place, beautifully appointed and has a built in, award winning dining room. (Good thing since there is only a stable and air strip within walking distance.) This was something I didn't know about beforehand. We were exhausted. We were hungry. We were not getting on the bikes again in search of food.

The roasted garlic olive oil was fabulous!

Warning! Blatant food porn.

We can't decide on which soup was better. The waiter warned us they were both good. And they were. Oilburner had the minestrone. I had the New England Clam Chowder!!

We both opted for the Filet. Uh....wow. Enough said.

The pool closed at nine. The mosquitos were out in abundance, and being the little blood sucks that they are. I didn't want to sit in the lounge since it was just us. So off to bed for us since we had big plans for the next day.

(Hey!! We rode through four states in one day! New Jersey - New York - Vermont - New Hampshire. What is it with all these "new"??)

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