Motorcycle Ride to Nowhere

At this point in our trip we’d decided to start making our way toward home. We rode south through the Adirondack Mountains. More beautiful sights and curvy roads! We stopped in a small town called Chestertown, New York. At the filling station I asked a man if he could recommend a tasty place to eat lunch. He gave me directions down the street to a local pizza and sandwich shop. We road down the street and easily found the small pizza diner. While parking our motorcycles on the street we noticed a German motorcycle with side car turn into the motorcycle shop beside the pizza diner. Two men in their late 40’s or 50’s were riding the bike and side car. We walk over to them while one gentleman was still sitting inside the side car and the other standing real close to the motorcycle and looking down. Brad made a comment such as nice bike or how does that side car ride. Neither of the two men looked up at us. We thought perhaps they didn’t hear us so we side stepped around the bike just ...

So far in our trip we’ve stuck to our rules to avoid chain restaurants and to make no reservations or definite plans. We did have a few goals such as riding to the Atlantic Coast, eating some Maine Lobster, perhaps cross in to Canada and make our route plans on the fly. We’ve completed our goals except for crossing into Canada. So we set a direct course through Vermont into Canada. The road through the mountains took us past more “Bear Crossing” signs and through some big patches of fog. Some of the trees were changing colors and we saw patches of red along the course. It was common to ride to the top of a mountain and look off to one side and see a small town nestled in the valley below. We reached the Canadian border crossing. There was no traffic and only about three cars crossing the border. The Canadian border agent started out speaking French but switched to English one he realized that I could not get past bonjour! The agent asked my purpose for the visit so I told him the...

After a late night telling stories in Laconia we got back on the bikes and found some more covered bridges. Some were closed to vehicle traffic. We walked through them and enjoyed walking along the streams. Some of the streams reminded us of wading through the streams aboard Quantico during our Marine Corps training. It was training in Quantico where Brad & I met for the first time about 11years ago. Unlike the streams in Virginia these streams and roads had moose crossing signs! That day in New Hampshire we saw many Moose Crossing and Deere Crossing signs. In Vermont we saw Bear Crossing signs too! We spend most of the day riding the back roads of New Hampshire. We did cross into Vermont over the Cornish-Windsor Bridge built in 1866 pictured here. The bridge had a wooden floor and two lanes for traffic. When we crossed into Vermont we stopped for fuel. We did not see any welcome to Vermont sign so we asked the policemen in the parking lot where the Welcome to Vermont...

We crossed the state line into New Hampshire. We rode through White Mountain National Forest and ended up in Conway. We met some bikers who told us about the famous covered bridges. They suggested that since we rode all the way to New Hampshire we have to ride the well known Kanacamagus Highway. They invited us to follow them to the Kanaca Highway toward Lincoln. We rode with them for several hours. The Kancamagus Highway took us through so beautiful mountains. Nice curvy roads with green trees all around us. I bet this would be an excellent ride in the fall when the trees are changing colors. We had lunch in North Woodstock at the Woodstock Inn. We sat outside and there was another group of motorcyclists dining there too. We started talking about our adventures. A couple members of the group were riding from Ohio. We were familiar with parts of Ohio. Recall Brad & I stopped in Wadsworth, Ohio last year. So we told the story about meeting the U.S. Olympian, Gary Broadban...