We Start A Short jaunt

We are off in Speedy again. This time to Vermont and the Adriondacks of New York for a couple of weeks of hiking and motorcycle riding. This means that we are taking the trailer again.

We are currently at Pawtuckaway State park in Nottingham, NH. Both bikes needed some scheduled service so we started the trip by bringing them up to Max BMW Motorcycles in Hampton. Rather than bring them in early in the morning (necessitating a pre-dawn start), leaving them all day, then heading to Vermont in the dark, we decided to leave after rush-hour, drop them off a day a ahead of time and spend a couple of days in New Hampshire (and Maine), before driving to Vermont.

So far so good. We brought Speedy in to our local Dodge dealer last week for an oil and transmission fluid change. We also asked them to check it over thoroughly. It came back with passing marks—and no breakdowns yet.

Since our last trip, we also added a large solar panel to Speedy. Hopefully, this will help keep the compressor refrigerator running and the house batteries charged. I'll do a separate post on installing the panel. So far, in at home testing, it will bring the batteries back to fully charged on partly cloudy day in a spot that has at least mid-day sun. We have our fingers crossed.

We spent most of our first day in New Hampshire in Maine. After dropping the bikes off, we went up to Freeport to get a new pair of waterproof hiking shoes for Ellen. As it was almost lunch time when we left Max's, we stopped on the way for lunch at a little fish shack called Justin's, right on Route 1 a few miles north of Max's. The seafood chowder was excellent and they even prepared a fish-only version for Ellen (without the shrimp and lobster). We also had some of their fried clams, also excellent. Only the fries were not quite up to snuff, a little too soggy for my taste.

After lunch it was straight up to LL Bean. After a couple of needed coffees at Coffee By Design, Ellen found a pair of Keen waterproof low hikers which seemed to fit (she's not quite enamored with the green trim color, though). Tomorrow will be the first test. We browsed the Freeport outdoor stores a bit, unsuccessfully looking for a hiking hat for me (my old Australian hat was "accidentally" put in the drier and shrunk to doll-size proportions). After that ittwas time to fire up Speedy for the drive back to New Hampshire and to the park. We arrived shortly after 6pm, found our nice flat site on Horse Island, and had a quiet dinner overlooking Pawtuckaway Lake. We don't have a waterfront site, but do have a water view. It will do quite nicely for another day.

Tomorrow, we hope to do a little hiking (got to break in those new boots!) and a little relaxing. We will probably pick up the bikes first thing Thursday morning. then relocate to Gifford Woods State Park, just outside of Killington, VT.