8/16 Freyeburg, MA – Newmarket, NH - Day
 

 

The theme for today was: "So is this what city traffic is like"

We've had wonderful weather this summer.  Only a couple of days with rain. Today was one of those days. As we were leaving the fair grounds at 7:15, after breakfast, it was raining.  Well not raining hard, but at least drizzling. The mileage for today was to be 87 miles. Not an extremely long day, but surely not a short one

By the time we hit the Porter Country Store at 8:45 (mile 22) is was slowly clearing and by 10AM the sun was starting to come out.  The country roads that we were riding on has been fanatic. Winding tree covered two lane roads with very little traffic are just the kind of roads that we love.

We crossed out of Maine and back into New Hampshire at the 26 mile mark. By 10:30 we stopped at the Effingham Country Store where we lounged for about 30 minutes.

The picnic stop was at mile 45.  We got there by 11:30, but we were in not hurry to leave.  It was warm and sunny but the main attraction was Rinaldi's Home Gelato.  It was perhaps the best ice cream that we've had on the trip.  The berry flavors were fantastic! We finally got back on the road by 1:30.

After only two miles after lunch, the skies opened up and started to pour.  It was the type of rain where it was coming down so hard that you could see the rain drops bounce off the road.  We took shelter under a large tree.  It seemed to let up and with our jackets on, we started down the road again.  Eight miles further, we all dove into the N.H. Farm Museum when it the skies open up with thunder and lightning.  At times it sounded as if the lightning was right overhead. The museum store must of had 10-15 riders waiting out the storm. It passed pretty quickly within 20 minutes and we were back on the road by 2:10.

In a short time, about 5 miles or so, we started to hit the urban traffic of Rochester.  Certainly not as urban as larger cities such as LA or NYC, but still traffic that we haven't had to put up with all summer. I gotta tell ya, the routing across America by Cycle America has be superb and here we are, less that a day and a half from our destination and we encounter city traffic.  I think that that's tremendous!

For the next 16 miles, we're riding the shoulder of route 125 south on a busy Friday evening rush hour. Not much fun, but by now there's a group of maybe ten of us together.

The route takes us into the town of Durham that is the home to the University of New Hampshire.  We staying at the Durham middle school, but having dinner on the campus.  At every university that we've had meals at, I really enjoyed the selection.

This evening, most everyone headed out to enjoy one more evening together. I don't know how may folks were at the restaurant, but we packed the place!
 

 

Eric and John

Toast to the trip

waiting for drinks