Day 74: Rochester VT to North Woodstock NH

Pictures: on the road outside of Rochester
by barn
we scream for ice cream
crossing the bridge over the Connecticut River into New Hampshire
a covered bridge on River street in NH
NH mountains ahead

What a great night in the Pumpkin Patch B&B. I slept like a baby on the king sized Sealy Posturpedic Euro style pillow top. The owners Debbie and Rich Mathiesen served us a great french toast breakfast with plenty of sausage, bacon and fruit salad bracing us for today’s long ride. Here is the thing about Vermont, they don’t take that good of care of their roads (or maybe its just the hard winters) so they are riddled with cracks. Also there are few shoulders and many roads have too much traffic to enjoy while bicycling. Then you get to a 15 or 20 mile tertiary road that has no traffic and is in beautiful shape and it makes the ride all worth while. So one minute your taking a break stressed and cursing VT then ten minutes later you’re effervescent with joy in spectacular scenery and having the ride of your life. Also you assume that everyone up here is a granola eating easy going free will type. Well that ain’t so, they are some of the most callous lest bicycle friendly drivers I’ve experienced. One guy in a pickup truck heading the opposite direction from we yesterday stopped while I climbed a 12% grade he said, “People like you get killed awful easy.” Maybe the granolas have pushed the rednecks a little too far up here. On a more possitive note my odometer rolled over 4000 miles today. I only did 40 miles then sagged in to the motel with Susan Walker to catch up on the blog.