Day 26

Day 26; Middleboro Massachusetts to Conway New Hampshire

Today was the best weather we have had all trip long! It didn't rain, and it didn't get above 85 degrees! We road north through Boston (awesome looking city), but you have to be careful looking around. The roads are not exactly will maintained (giant pot holes everywhere).

We rode across some cool looking bridges as we passed through New Hampshire, Maine, and back into New Hampshire. One river in particular was really cool to cross because we could see the bridge for I95 off to our left. Most of today was on state highways which made for a fun, curvy day of riding. Granted or day today was much shorter than others (200ish miles), it felt like it should have been longer. In that short distance however, we saw a lot of beautiful scenery! I also keep noticing all these cars and motorcycles for sale that I want to buy. One place in particular had about 20 cards on the lot from before the 1960's! I chose to ride on so I wouldn't get too attached. Anyway, back to the scenery.

Lakes, rivers and forested areas are in abundance in the North East. One of our gas stops turned into a rest area when we noticed a creek running right behind it. We ducked into the shade trees next to it and had a cold drink and snacks. As ephemeral as it was, I was extremely refreshed afterward. We hit highway 16 there, and rode it north until we hit traffic.

Luckily, there was an information Center for White Mountain National Forest at the next turn off. Rather than sit in traffic, we chose to check out the visitor center. The ranger there brought out multiple maps to show us where we could go. (His station emblem on the map was a ranger with his hands on his hips). On every map, he showed us where the station was, told us that was him, and put his hands on his hips. It was pretty entertaining.

Mount Washington (supposedly a great ride) is closed for the first part of tomorrow, and we weren't about to start it tonight, so we found a camping site in the national park and mapped out what we want to check out in the morning as we had dinner.

We created a new dish, made of fish. And scallops, and shrimp, and haddock, and onion rings. All of these things mixed with a cheese pasta created our spin on lobster mac and cheese (very popular near the Atlantic). I like to call it a Mac Medley and it turned out pretty good. Then came our biggest challenge of the day.

We are in bear country now, and that means keeping our food out of a bear belly so it can go in our own. We had to hang the food and smellable items in a tree. We tired a rock on the end of a rope, threw it over a tree branch, and tired our food to it. As we hoisted the bags, the branch broke and came crashing down. It took us a few more tries to get the food up, but it's still not that high. For this reason, my dad fashioned a redneck alarm system out of metal cups. Bear tries to get food, good moves rope, rope jingles cups, hopefully bear gets scared and runs off. If not, I wake up, grab my knife (combat style) and try to scare it off. The knife only makes me feel like I have a fighting chance...

Now we are both writing our posts next to our campfire before we turn in for the night and it is relaxing.

Bye now, LB