Tamworth, NH, July 4th

Happy 4^th of July and remember what we’re celebrating, this nations birth and freedom. This is a great end of the day sitting here looking at the sun setting around Mount Chocorua with Chris singing a few tunes. If you haven’t heard him playing guitar and singing, you really should.

I woke up to sunshine and although I had the alarm on my phone set for early, I forgot it’s eastern time zone and for some reason I haven’t been able to figure out how to get this damn phone to switch to the time zone I’m in cuz it’d really help. I do know that I have to add an hour to what I see on the bike, but I usually use the phone as my watch since I don’t have a watch, but what am I worried about, time is meaningless when your having fun. I forgot to tell you the stories of how much time I spent this last weekend at Best Buy while they were trying to get me setup with a new phone, new service and cleaning up this laptop, let’s just say I spent too much time when I should have been doing other things.

Ok, back to the travels of the day. I asked the guy at the front desk what kind of trip I should consider for the day, whether to go thru the Andirondack Mountains north and then head East or the south side of Vermont into New Hampshire. He wasn’t much help, but not from the area, Indian, no, not feathers, but dot. So after looking at the map and remembering what George told me a couple of years ago about the route I took being a great ride when it’s sunny and no rain, I decided 7, 9 and 10 to the Kancamagus trail looked pretty good to me.

You can see from the pictures that the three states that I visited, New York, Vermont and New Hampshire are pretty scenic and it’s definitely in the mountains. I started out with the leathers and did have to wear them most of the day until late enough. It gets plenty chilly in the mountains and another sign that your in the mountains are the turn offs for runaway trucks. That would be something else to see, a runaway truck running up one of those ramps to stop it and you gotta give a truck driver a lot of credit for risking himself and his truck to stop down the mountain.

I did get pictures of the state lines, but really screwed up at the New Hampshire state line. I was so exited that I could get rid of the helmet for the rest of the ride that I took it off and packed it away only to realize I was on the wrong side of the line. So you got it, I unpacked it, put it on and rode the bike across the line so I could take it off again and put it away. I know, stupid me, but someone did ask why I didn’t just push it across the line, but like I told them, it was uphill that I wasn’t going to try. Now if you really think I’d worry about unpacking the helmet only to get across the line, then the story works.

The route was a beautiful ride and it was a great day for a bike ride although I was almost taken out by one of my own, one of those bikers who thinks they can ride the crotch rockets however they want. You know the kind, they think they own the road and ride fast and take chances. Ok, somewhat like me, but I also heed to the riders in front of me. Anyway, I was pulling out to pass a bike in front of me, which with all of the curves are few and far between, just to have a bike scream by me and scare the shit out of me. I did eventually catch the guy and told him when I checked my mirror he wasn’t anywhere in sight that he almost took me out. He said he saw me pulling out and was going so fast there was no way to slow down or stop that he went wide to get around me. Well, so much for that, but if I would’ve pulled out wide, we both would have been toast.

I did get to see Drake college in Hanover, no, not hangover, but I’m sure there are plenty of those in the morning around that school, but I remember that town well only because I got lost trying to stay on highway 10 heading north. There were no signs that I made the mistake that I normally don’t make. Right is normally right that in this case I decide to go left at the T in the road, that, yep, left was wrong and right was right. Anyway, I did get back on track and that must’ve been just enough out of the way for me to hit a parade in town along the Kancamagus trail. I was stopped in traffic with a blonde riding her own bike behind me that I gave he the signal to come up next to me, you know the one. Anyway I got to meet Nancy and talk to her about some of the riding around the area and thought that maybe I found someone who might be able to show me some riding in the area until she said she was meeting a friend at the ski resort to do some riding with. Ok, I got it, cuz I’m sure if it were another chick she was hooking up with I would’ve been invited to ride along.

Ok, you can see that I made it to the Mathew’s family house in the mountain and this is a great place to catch a little R&R. With the view in front of me and the background music, it’ll definitely be a nice, fun relaxing weekend. I have a bed to sleep in and I didn’t even have to make it. Niki felt bad for me since I was sleeping in the basement again like I did a few years ago that she said she’d make my bed. Now I don’t have to worry about making my bed and sleeping in it, like some people have to. Oh, and that mountain in the picture, Mount Chocorua, I’ll be climbing that tomorrow.

Day One Tamworth Pix