While getting the bikes packed up, we see a fellow rider who is packing up his Harley and family’s car in the space next to our bikes. They are here visiting family. They had trailered the bike all the way from somewhere in Florida and plan on riding around all week. We chat for a bit and head out.

The bikes, ready for the day:

Before heading out, we grab a quick lunch at Subway at the local Walmart next to our motel:

Roll out and continue on I-95 through Connecticut. Just after a few miles I pass by a petroleum tank farm I was at just two months before doing work at. In fact I could see my equipment from the interstate, which was kind of cool. We head up through Rhode Island and Massachusetts and see the south side of New England. Relatively uneventful here.

Somewhere in CT. Their gas stations are full service but we opt to fill up ourselves. We take the opportunity to grab a water and relax in the shade:

We head north on I-89 and make our way into New Hampshire and Vermont. Shortly after paying a toll, the scenery really opened up and things really got beautiful. The smell was also changing, and the air really felt cleaner. We pull into a small town called Contoocook NH to gas up, and many of the buildings here look like they haven’t changed in fifty years. The whole area was very photogenic.

Gassing up in Contoocook, NH:

As we’re filling up here, a local walks up to us and says that he just heard on the radio that some storms were rolling in and the alerts sounded pretty serious. He told us if we were to continue on we should be very careful on the bikes as some of the storms that area has had have been pretty windy with large raindrops. I purchase some large trash bags for later when my bike might be parked in the rain, since my soft sidebags are not waterproof. We pull out the raingear for the first of many times during the trip, prepare for the worst, and continue on.

The rain was almost immediate. We were not but a couple miles down the road and we started getting wet. Despite the rain that we rode through, New Hampshire and Vermont were still quite amazing states and we were in awe with some of the scenery there. It was very comparable to east TN and west NC, although the trees had a noticeably different color to them here.

A random shot on the side of the road while double checking our maps:

We had hoped to camp out tonight but the rain was a turnoff. Since setting up camp in the rain this early on would probably be a bad idea, we decide to look for a cheap place to stay for the night so we could continue on in our journey tomorrow morning when the rain might let up. After wandering around for some time, we made our way into a small town called Wells River, VT and find a small motel to stay at. This town is pretty small and has a nice downtown area that appears to be pretty much most of what to see here.

The town square at Wells River:

I suppose it's pretty obvious where the town name comes from. I didn't realize this at the time but this town is literally at the VT/NH border, the other side of the river here is New Hampshire.

We grab a bite to eat at the local restaurant and make out way back to the motel. Our gear is still pretty wet so we hang them up to be dry by the morning. I tried to give Tiff a call since I haven’t had much of a chance at all up to this point but both of my cell phones do not have coverage in the area. This is probably a sign of things to come, since it will probably only get worse from here on out. I walk over to the gas station next door and use the payphone. Talk to Tiff and tell her we are okay despite the rain and thunderstorms we rode through today.

We set the alarms much earlier this time and prepare to be rolling out at 6am.

The day was relatively short, I think the miles and heat from the first day wore us down a bit. We did not cover as many miles as we wanted to on this day but the town we were able to hang out at made it worth it. A very beautiful area indeed.