Saturday, 36 miles to Woodsville, NH
Sunday, 52 miles to Enfield
Monday, 45 miles to Sanbornton
Tuesday, 50 miles to Madbury
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| The Connecticut River around Hanover, New Hampshire. Vermont is on the left, New Hampshire on the right. |
This story is about ordinary people doing something
ordinary. We’re not out to set any records or do anything that hasn’t already
been done. Many people have gone on bicycle trips that have lasted months or
years, through several countries or around the world. In the end, they are
really just doing what we are doing, riding one day at a time, taking each
challenge as it comes, whether it’s fixing a flat tire or finding a place to
pitch a tent, meeting wonderful people, and having fun.
For this trip, we just wanted to get on our bikes, leaving from our home in Madbury, New Hampshire, and returning in about 3½ weeks. We had a loose itinerary and an idea of riding around 40 miles a day.
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| For three days toward the end of our journey we meandered back and forth across the Connecticut River between New Hampshire and Vermont, picking roads that kept us closest to the river. This would be our final river crossing, to Hanover, New Hampshire. The river continues south into Connecticut, but from Hanover we headed east towards the New Hampshire seacoast and home. |
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| Sunday morning we rode 40 miles through some nothing towns and beautiful scenery to Hanover, the home of Dartmouth College. We stopped at Molly's Restaurant for an extravagant lunch complete with desserts so enormous even we couldn't finish them. Afterwards we were full and tired; all we could think about was a nap. We searched out a grassy spot behind the restaurant and lay down under a tree to sleep. |
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| Ride anywhere in New Hampshire or Vermont and you're bound to come across a covered bridge. Some are still in use for regular traffic, some preserved for foot traffic only. Each is unique and beautiful in its own way. This is the Cilleyville/Bog Bridge. If you want to see what it looks like in winter, click here. You can appreciate why covered bridges served such an important function. Imagine taking a horse and sleigh over a bridge covered in several feet of snow. |
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| Brian and Mary, friends from our Scottish music group,s spend their summers in this old farmhouse in Sanbornton. They graciously fed us dinner and put us up for our last night on the road. |
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| Sometimes we're in a rhythm and don't want to stop to inspect lawn art, but this was too good to pass up. |
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| Finally, summer arrived. This was the third day with no rain and our last day on the road. We stopped in Alton for a swim in Lake Winnipesaukee, the largest lake in the Lakes Region of New Hampshire. This time we put on our bathing suits. (I didn't get a picture of Rob since we went in together. Those are just random swimmers.) |
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| We made it home after 25 days and 1000 miles. |
Our dream is to get on our bikes one day in the beginning of the summer, ride west to the Pacific Ocean, then ride south to the Mexican border, then east to the Atlantic Ocean, then north to home. We expect to take a year for this adventure and are hoping to make it happen in 2019. But until now Rob's longest bike trip was two weeks. (I'd gone on an eight-week trip in 1980.) We needed a longer trip to make sure that we really wanted to spend 12 months on our bikes. Together.
By the end of this trip I wrote in my journal, "I feel like we're just getting warmed up." Rob and I were both feeling strong, riding together more often than not. Rob has already talked to his department chair about taking a year's unpaid leave of absence. We're waiting to hear if it will be approved. Meanwhile, for 2018 we're off to Germany.
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