0 Day 4 - Toms River, NJ to Franconia Notch, NH

Day 4 dawned bright and shiny. The rain storms that ripped through the area last night had cleaned everything up and left huge puddles to play in. In addition to becoming a source of the oppressive humidity! Uncovering the bikes we could see the seats and saddlebags dotted with water. Indicating how strong the winds were last night, flinging rain under the covers,

Today was going to be the most difficult day of the journey so far. We needed to get up to New Hampshire. It was doable, but ambitious. My major oversight was New York City. I was taking us from New Jersey to New Hampshire in a day. A Monday...through rush hour traffic...near New York City.


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Jack had some alternate suggestions that Oilburner and I researched on the maps last night. And my secret source in Maine also had some ideas. Since the George Washington Bridge is going through some major construction, traffic was going to be bad. Both sources recommended the Tappan Zee Bridge north of the city. This route appealed to me since that is probably the closest I will ever get to taking my bike to the city. (At least until Jack leads a tour to Boulevard East.). However, the sedate tollway up to Albany, NY won out. Our logic was hoping there would be fewer cars and fewer police to impede a speedy jaunt. We experienced empty roads with the New York state tollways five years ago. Just hoping for the same.

On a side note, I will be forced to go back to this area some time. The Village of Sleep Hollow is near the Tappan Zee on the east shore. Sleepy Hollow! Gotta go! Washington Irving is interred there. I need to go exploring. Maybe sit on some inn balcony at midnight, sipping something warm, watching for any nocturnal happenings.

Overall the day was long and completely in eventful. Sweet. We did leave "later" to hopefully miss the large portion of traffic. We went out of our way to scoot west around New York City. New York was where we first encountered frost heaves. Wow! Those are nasty. I do not recommend hitting one of those while performing a shoulder check. Talk about vertigo. Since I forgot to look up Orange County Choppers we discovered 3 miles too late that we had missed it. Those 3 miles equate to 30 miles on the tollway because we would have to ride to the next exit to get off and turn around. Our pocketbook didn't want to face the tolls.

As I said, nothing happened. We rode...

We ate...

We fueled. Someone adorned my bike with flowers...

We rode some more...

I routed us through the Green Mountains of Vermont. Beautiful, but not nearly as isolated as you might think while riding along. We were enjoying the beautiful trees, river, and flowers without seeing a single settlement. Looking at google maps later revealed a fairly large city right on the other side of the ridge.

We eventually arrived at our destination after 430 miles (690 km). It was a small inn at Franconia Notch of the White Mountains in New Hampshire. (See map above.) So many places were booked up and I found this place advertising on Airbnb.

The inn was wonderful! It was a grand place, beautifully appointed and has a built in, award winning dining room. (Good thing since there is only a stable and air strip within walking distance.) This was something I didn't know about beforehand. We were exhausted. We were hungry. We were not getting on the bikes again in search of food.

The roasted garlic olive oil was fabulous!

Warning! Blatant food porn.

We can't decide on which soup was better. The waiter warned us they were both good. And they were. Oilburner had the minestrone. I had the New England Clam Chowder!!

We both opted for the Filet. Uh....wow. Enough said.

The pool closed at nine. The mosquitos were out in abundance, and being the little blood sucks that they are. I didn't want to sit in the lounge since it was just us. So off to bed for us since we had big plans for the next day.

(Hey!! We rode through four states in one day! New Jersey - New York - Vermont - New Hampshire. What is it with all these "new"??)

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