The day started out well enough. Just an ordinary day on the road. HA! Again I say HA! We left our hotel around 9:30 am, which is pretty good for us. The new bag was super easy to attach to the sissy bar, saving so much time. We went a little out of our way so that we could ride along the coast of Lake Ontario. We have now been to all 5 Great Lakes.
Ok, so back to the ordinary day on the road….We went by Lake Ontario and then headed back along the route the GPS had set for us. We put in the map to avoid highways, but it was a really bad path. I was having to constantly be navigator because it seemed that every few miles I was having to watch for another turn. NO FUN. We stopped for gas and decided to look at the paper map (see Tip #6) to find a better route. While looking at it, we realized that we were right there by the Adirondack mountains, SO, and here is where it all went wrong, we decided that we would plot a route that took us just out of the way through the Adirondacks. Just a little detour, nothing big. HA! That little detour added 100 miles to our journey. 100 miles isn’t too much in a car, but it is a long time on a bike through mountains. As pretty as it was, it was eating up our day and we needed to get to Maine. We stopped for lunch. Kirk had to borrow my reading glasses to see the menu…..I shouldn’t laugh, after all, they are mine so I do need them myself, but it was funny. After our bellies were full we got back on the road.
We needed to get back to civilization and were tired and still about 200 miles from Maine, so we took the fastest route to a highway and decided to take the interstate the rest of the way through New York. We hate taking the interstate but we had already wasted enough time. We rode through Vermont.
Most of the little towns we went into had really neat looking houses and buildings…Then there was this one. I think that if I were ever to make a horror movie, it would have to include this place. 
We got through Vermont and into New Hampshire. I was able to get a few pictures before the sun went down. I am hoping that we can get back there to explore those states some more. I tried to get a picture of the “Welcome to New Hampshire” sign, but it came out blurry. Sorry.
We made it to Concord, NH and stopped for gas. We were about 60 miles away finally…Yay! Kirk went to get back on the highway, and didn’t look at the signs (again) and we ended up going the wrong way and having to turn around in a little town called Bow. As we turned onto the onramp, blue lights began flashing behind us. Kirk was super confused. He kept saying, I didn’t do anything wrong and I kept saying, well pull over. We stopped. The cop came up and told us that all of the tail lights on the motorcycle were out. Sure enough, the running lights and brake light didn’t work. The flashers and turn signals did though. He was very nice, but still ran Kirk’s drivers license and asked us a ton of questions about where we were going and why were were riding the motorcycle across country and was a little bit weary of Kirk at first I think (I mean, who wouldn’t be, he does look a little intimidating especially in his leathers). He let us go, but was concerned with our safety since you couldn’t see us at all from behind, so he suggested that we ride with the flashers on the rest of the way. This was very annoying but we needed to be safe.
We finally made it to York, Maine and found our friends house. We were exhausted but so very glad to see Chris and Jenn, and to get a glass of wine before we headed to bed to get some rest before we started a new day.
The Road and The Nestless 