New England

Our bikes arrived!

rfay — Fri, 09 Sep 2005 18:04:57 +0000

The bike store we shipped the bikes to called and said that the bikes arrived safely! We just have to get to Manchester, NH and put them together now.

Here we go: New England for the Fall Colors!

rfay — Sun, 11 Sep 2005 05:00:29 +0000

OK! We have tickets and this trip is going to happen! We fly to Manchester, New Hampshire this coming Wednesday, and start riding on Thursday. We'll be posting our adventures and pictures as we go and get a chance.

Budgeting

rfay — Sun, 11 Sep 2005 18:02:24 +0000

We're starting to keep closer and closer track of our budget, because we want to make a realistic budget for the big trip (from the Arctic Circle to the bottom of South America) which we hope to start next year (in 2006!).

So here's our budget for this one. We'll see how we do. We're figuring about $20/day/person. That will come out to about $400/person (not including airfare or shipping the bikes both ways). Hopefully we can do it!

Made it to Manchester

rfay — Thu, 15 Sep 2005 20:30:07 +0000

DSC00071
Originally uploaded by refay.

We got our bikes all put together today and got on the road. The wonderful folks at Alternative Bike helped us get all set and gave us an idea where to go. Our first little loop before family reunion on Saturday is to ride up and over toward the coast and back down toward Exeter. We're riding this afternoon in a light rain, sometimes heavier, and just working our way north.

Hannah Dustin - Don't mess with her!

rfay — Sat, 17 Sep 2005 03:26:04 +0000

These New Englanders are crazy about their history, of course. Every village has a marker about its own Revolutionary General. Yesterday we rode through Dunbarton, the hometown of General John Stark, an admirable man indeed.

But today we passed a memorial to Hannah Dustin. Hannah was carried away by Indians and taken to an island. But with her 10-year-old compatriot, she killed all the Indians, scalped them, and escaped back to home ground.

Don't mess with Hannah Dustin!

Troy Family Reunion

nancy — Mon, 19 Sep 2005 02:59:35 +0000

We rode our bikes along the entire coast of New Hampshire, yes the whole coast before noon on Saturday. Are you impressed? Well it was only 16 miles of coast line but it was so beautiful. Riding along the sea coast was such a treat. Moist area, surfers out in the rocklined shallows and eel grass marshes.

We rode to my cousin Janice's house in Stratham, NH where all my crazy troy relatives mingled for the the Troy Family Reunion, an afternoon of eating, drinking and general fun. Aunt Kay was the oldest at 96. (Fiesty old broad) It was wonderful seeing all the relatives I have not seen in ages.

We rode our bikes this morning from Stratham to Exeter to visit Randy's uncle and aunt. We rode 41 miles up to Dover where our new friend Roland walked up to us out of the blue at the grocery store and took us home for dinner. Wonderful evening with top notch people (and new friends). Wow. What a treat!

The Delights of the Warm Showers List

rfay — Fri, 23 Sep 2005 21:12:21 +0000

We love to meet people on our travels,and one of the ways to do is is the wonderful Warm Showers list, a hospitality list for touring cyclists. Most of the time the people on the list don't live where you want them to, but yesterday we hit the jackpot and got to spend the night with Brad and Sue Wyman, devoted touring cyclists, at their incredibly beautiful farmhouse-at-the-top-of-the-hill in West Dummer, New Hampshire. The delight of sharing the evening with them and exchanging cycling experiences was one of the high points of our trip so far.

Route Change!

nancy — Sun, 25 Sep 2005 17:20:55 +0000

Well, Nancy kept insisting on finding those colors, so we just kept heading north and more north until we went into Canada. So our original route is nothing like what we've done. We followed up Maine, New Hampshire, and Vermont into Quebec, and now will come back down through Vermont to (hopefully) catch our plane in a week.

Chasing the colors

nancy — Sun, 25 Sep 2005 18:53:02 +0000

Poem:

Chasing the colors up the Connecticut River
Into Vermont and New Hampshire
We weave the state lines.
Searching for the change of colors.
Seaching, seeing, awed, stop.
Get off our bikes
Snapping a another photo
We ride on.

STOP!

Another covered bridge along
the tour-de-covered-bridge.
Our friend and now our tour guide, Brad
guides us skillfully
through the back roads of his northern woods.
Snap, snap
We capture this early Autumn afternoon scene
Clouds racing in and out.
Wait, wait, the clouds are covering the green
the cloud is leaving,
uncovering the greenest of green fields,
it is unreal, nothing is this green
but freshly squeezed oil paint from a tube
of vermillion or forest green
but perhaps five shades lighter
Through the lens we capture
the simmering leaves, the distance hills
Snap, Got it!
ride on, around the next bend
Stop!
A picturesque diary farm with dual silos
having seen better days.
Not much red here
we ride north
looking for the change of colors
we ride on, we ride into Canada.

The Kindness of Strangers

rfay — Wed, 28 Sep 2005 14:10:28 +0000

They just never stop spoiling us.

As we rode south in Quebec on a gloomy, rainy afternoon, we decided it was time to find a place to camp, and saw a sign pointing to a campground on Lake Memphremagog. So we rode in toward it, but like most campgrounds this time of year, it was abandoned. There were some campers remaining there, but no people. So we rode around looking for a good spot.

But there was somebody there! A late-season fisherman, Pierre, a French-Canadian with nearly no English. But he could say "Hongree?" and offer us the world's best minnestrone. (Turns out he's a chef at a nearby ski area). And he could say "Sleep here?" and point into his spare camper, all set up. And he fed us in the morning his wonderful French toast with Quebec maple syrup.

If you're ever depressed, go for a bike tour.

We're about to forget how to camp.

Dan Lewis

nancy — Sat, 01 Oct 2005 07:26:13 +0000

Thanks to Nancy's dear old brother (yes he is older) Dan, for the best gourmet meal this side of Italy and also a chance to see the "gang" again. Dan's building a second home on Goose Pond Road. Your all are welcome to stop by, and have a beer at sunset and watch the day settle into night on the newly contructed deck the "gang" built. It is a great tradition we all should all adopt. Stop what you are doing at sunset, have a seat in a comfortable chair and an watch the sun go down. Also thanks to Tod for giving us a lift 30 miles down the road. It would have been a 90 mile day with a deadline we would not have meet.

We're done and back

rfay — Sun, 02 Oct 2005 20:46:09 +0000

We made it to Manchester safely, packed up our bikes at the bike store, shipped them off FedEx Ground (hope they get home OK) and then mailed ourselves home today. Made it just fine - My son Mark picked us up at the airport.

Now that we have easy internet access we'll post more articles and pictures in the next day or so.

Biking from Quebec, Canada to Vermont, USA

nancy — Mon, 03 Oct 2005 01:11:10 +0000

Pierre Robin surveying his kingdom

The night we stayed at the Quebec fishing camp with Pierre Robins, it started raining about 2:00 in the morning and kept raining all morning. As I awoke started to sing the only French song I learned when I was a young girl. As I sang it, Pierre joined in from outside the camper. Frere Jacques, Frere Jacques, dormez-vous, dormez vous Soon after we arose from out comfortable, dry accommodations we were greeted with hot coffee and the very very best French toast I have ever eaten. The three things made it special. The Quebec maple syrup was a lighter than that of other famous places, secondly the French toast was made with chocolate milk and thirdly it was made by Pierre a marvelous chief who kindness was truly a treat.

Randy and I debated if we wanted to ride in rain and or take a day off. We finally decided not to be wimps and ride in the rain. After leaving Pierre fishing camp at Lac Memphremagog, we rode south into Vermont.

It rained off and on that morning. Not hard but it was one of the colder days and we stopped a few times to get out of the rain. There was some coloring of the leaves but just a touch. I kept on searching for moose. I sure wanted to see a moose on this trip. I called out "here Moosey, here Moosey" but it did not work. Sometimes I just entertain myself while riding. Nothing much else to do but ride, sing outload, try to learn to whistle better, search for moose, and look around at the beautiful landscapes as we ride though the northeast in the autumn days of september. "Here Moosey, moosey, moosey".

I did manage to get a photo of moose crossing sign and a photo of a stuffed moose head wearing a Boston Red Socks baseball cap and sunglasses which will be posted with the other photos.

The crossing into the United States was somewhat uneventful. Drivers Licenses work for now to get back into the country, until 2007 in which passports will be required. The border inspectors have access to computer data base information so be prepared for a pop-quiz. So hopefully you do not suffer from not remembering things like where were you born. Luckily this is something Randy has not forgotten yet, or we would still be touring in Canada.

The border guard did ask us if we were carrying more then $10,000. It spurred a bit of a discussion on how we would carry such a sum on our bikes. Would it fit in our panniers if it was in $5.00 bills or would we have to carry large bills like $100â€™s? The guard had a good sense of humor. As we left the border the inspector told us that the rain will stop at the bottom of the hill. Which hill he did not say.

Good maps and good riding

rfay — Mon, 03 Oct 2005 16:01:53 +0000

Our friend Roland gave us the Delorme atlases/gazeteers for New Hampshire and Maine, and they made all the difference in our trip. (We later bought the Vermont gazeteer.) We were able to get *good* information about little back roads, and always had options if we didn't like the highways we were on.

As bad as it sounds, I just ripped the appropriate pages out of the books and put them in my map case on my handlebar bag and we followed them along. They're wonderful and highly recommended. I've used them a bit in the past, but will probably always carry them in the future.

Trip Wrapup and Finances

rfay — Tue, 04 Oct 2005 23:10:28 +0000

Countryside near Mosquitoville, Vermont

Well, we're home and settling in to an altered reality. The cat is really lonely and there are lots of things to catch up on.

Miles: We went 691 miles on our big loop, didn't do the loop we planned since we went up into Canada and came back on the Northeast side of Vermont. Our biggest day was a 65-miler, and the shortest a 23-mile day. The average day was about 43 miles.

Route: The actual route is now posted, and you can see that we didn't go west of Vermont's fabulous Northeast Kingdom, but we did go up into Quebec as far as Magog.

Finances: Our financial goal was to live on $40/day ($20/person/day). We rode 17 days. The actual numbers came out to $42/day, but we had many days that were far higher. And all of the very low days were a result of other kind people (family and strangers) taking care of us. So our actual numbers probably weren't real. We probably need to budget at least $30/day/person for North American touring, perhaps more. You can compare the finances to the writeup from our Northwest and Mexico trips. There were many days where we might have spent $20 for a campground had some kind person not taken us in. And although we paid for two nights in B&B's, we had many other comfortable nights with old and new friends. We stayed 10 nights in people's homes. Only 5 of those nights were with relatives!

Weight: We didn't gain any weight and didn't lose any weight. It was pretty cushy riding, low miles and lots of good food.

Bike Maintenance: We should have had our bikes in a little better condition. I should have put a new chain on mine before starting. Nancy needed new derailleur cables - one actually broke near Gorham, New Hampshire. And I had a freehub break into little pieces. I probably couldn't have anticipated or prevented that. Next time: New chains, cables, and housing before starting out.

Cool people: I don't think we could ever expect (or should expect in the future) to run into that many kind people that would be so generous. But it's a treat to see it. We spent 10 nights in people's homes, and five of those were with people we'd never met before, who just invited us in off the street!

Weather: We had fairly good weather. Lots more easy days than hard. I suppose that on some of the 3-4 really rainy days we were wishing for it to stop. It did suddenly get significantly colder the day we hit Colebrook, New Hampshire, and it's nice that we had such easy accomodations after that point (we didn't camp any more after that!)