Monday, July 25, 2011

Rallies 2011 – Day 11

This morning we wanted to get an early start, so we set the alarm clock and got out of bed when it went off. By 7:10EDT we were on our way. The first part of the route was up I-95. Around 8:30 I started looking for a Panera Bread so we could stop for an hour or so and take care of some work related things. I never did find the Panera Bread but I did find an MGM Grand hotel and casino along highway 2. We proceeded down the road to a Subway which didn’t have any electrical outlets, we ended up in a Dunkin Donuts using my trusty Sprint Overdrive connection. We were really pushing the limits of that poor 3G connection.

Our stop lasted about 2 hours and then we proceeded south on CT-2 until we met up with I-95 again. We headed into Rhode Island and turned east on RI-102 and followed it over to Newport. Our friends from last night had recommended that we go to Newport, ride along Ocean Avenue and check out the “Old Money” mansions in the area. Well… Newport has to be one of the worst tourist traps ever! There are people crawling all over the place and traffic is insane. If it hadn’t been for the advice of our friends to check out Ocean Avenue I would have turned north and gotten the heck out of Dodge. We did make it all the way around Ocean Ave. and then cut back over to the visitor center to learn more about the tours. Navigating through the little city with it’s one way streets and rough roads exhausted me. By the time we made it back to the visitor center I was done. We found Reagan a patch and then got back on the bikes.

I pulled up tonight’s hotel in my “Favorites” in the GPS and let it do the routing. Thirty minutes later we were out of the area and back to freeways. We followed highway 24 north to I-93N which took us through Boston. Sure there was traffic through Boston but we were rewarded with a ride through the tunnel which goes under much of the city, then a beautiful suspension bridge followed by a “Double Decker” bridge. Boston is a pretty cool town freeway-wise.

On the way out of Boston we caught US-1N over to Danvers, Ma. We checked in without any problems and unloaded the bikes. Shortly after we were inside, the skies opened up and the rain started coming down. The temperature has dropped at least 10 degrees and the rain continues to come down.

For all of my readers in the hotter part of the US, we enjoyed comfortable temperatures in the 70’s today. We’ve finally reached the cool weather I’ve been expecting since coming to the Northeast.

Today we traveled 256 miles in 9 hours.

day 11

Tomorrow we are heading to Bar Harbor, ME. Right now the Garmin has us going up to Bangor and then cutting down. I may drop off the Interstate at Augusta and take 3 east. If I’m really feeling adventurous I might follow US-1 out of Brunswick. Right now I’m a little traffic adverse from the Newport experience of the day so I think I’ll load these 2 other choices and decide along the way…

Iron Butt fans: After I left Newport, I decided if a Rallymaster wanted a nice challenging bonus in Rhode Island, they could pick something in Newport. Just getting in and out of the town is a time challenge in itself. Then getting around to reach a well placed bonus could easily gobble up time and make routing a real challenge. Just a thought…..

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