White River Junction to Portland Maine

The weather was almost too hot yesterday but I ain’t complaining. It was a record high in Portland for the date, 91 degrees. Watching the weather on the weather channel made me glad we didn’t stay in Florida for the shuttle launch, Daytona Beach had 5 inches of rain in one day. We would have been miserable.

The ride across New Hampshire was slow going. The 187 miles we did took 6 hours. Much of the road we did was in horrible condition, this is snow country and they don’t seem to be maintaining the back roads we were on. However, it was more beautiful farm country with many colonial style homes and we passed through dozens of small towns. That added to the slow pace but made for interesting scenery.

We managed to arrive in Portland right at 5 o’clock rush hour so we didn’t get to our hotel until after 7. I am not counting that time in the total time to do the miles either.

We had to pay two tolls in the last 20 miles on the interstate. You certainly can’t call it a freeway. Our route took us through Laconia, which is home to the largest bike rally on the east coast but we were there three weeks before it happens. The weather brought out the bikers. We saw more bikes today than we had seen in the month before.

We actually rode into downtown Portland. It is way cool with many old brick buildings and lots of park space. It did remind me of Portland, Oregon. But the traffic was horrible. I thought we were going to be sideswiped by a lady in the car next to us at a stoplight just before the ferry entrance when cars had blocked the intersection by entering on red. She must have been late for the ferry because she was going to get through on our green light come hell or high water. She came into our lane even though I know she saw us since we made eye contact. When she came towards us I revved the engine to remind her. Loud pipes can have a use!

We have 168 miles ahead of us today and we need to get an early start to get to the post office in Bar Harbor to get our mail before they close. So I am off to pack up.