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Published: September 18th 2012
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Nearly done 21.000 miles
This is it, all but maybe a 1000 miles loop in the north east corner to finish off the trip Day 160……08/09/2012 Sorry for the delay, things are happening so fast now that the time is drawing near to return home, I do not know where it all goes.
The plan today is to ride the 175 miles or so from near Portsmouth in New Hampshire back to Reg’s house in Connecticut before a forecast storm got there first, and this we did with just a few minutes to spare. Apparently it was the tail end of hurricane Isaac or Irene that was passing through.
Over the next few days we will just chill out and take stock of the fact that we have now come full circle on our trip, yes there is a little more to see and do in this area, but we are back at the start point.
Day 161……09/09/2012 Today Reg and I will ride to a bike show back in Massachusetts with two friends of his, and Lynne will go to see Elaine’s daughter’s new baby in Rhode Island. The forecast for today and the whole of the coming week is for fine weather so that will be great for riding in. The show was a fairly small affair, but
there were a good number of old British bike’s there and a lot of 70s Japanese models that I had not seen before. The days ride was a little over 150 miles through the Connecticut and Massachusetts countryside, passing pretty cottages and mansions alike
Day 162……10/09/2012 Not too much happening today, Christine got an oil change, but the planned tyre change for her will have to wait until tomorrow as a pair had to be ordered in.
Day 163……11/09/2012 A sombre day here in the US, with everyone remembering the events of eleven years ago at the World trade centre in New York.
Christine got her new rubber and not before time, they had done very well over the 8000 miles but were now very badly worn and made cornering a little interesting to say the least. The costs of the tyres here in the US are around 30%!c(MISSING)heaper than at home, so definitely worth doing before we go.
Day 164……12/09/2012 With new boots fitted to Christine yesterday, Lynne and I were setting off today for a bit of a loop ride to see a little more of this part of the
Bike show
A real nut case of a bike back in its day East side, which would finish up with a visit to another chap named Bob who lives in New York State who I had met while here in 2006, we had ridden together with two of his pals all through Nova Scotia and back down the North East coast through Maine, New Hampshire, and Massachusetts.
After around a hundred miles we arrived in Plymouth Massachusetts where we would visit the Plimoth Plantation and open air museum depicting the lives of the early settlers from England, that went on to be known as the pilgrims. The museum was in two parts on the one side the buildings recreated to look like those of the early settlers, and the other those of the Native Indians homes and campsites. Lynne and I were treated as newly arrived colonists from England, and I suppose that’s what we were really. We were spoken too in an old English tongue, and the part I liked was being referred to as “Master” at the end of each sentence, something that methinks will not continue after we leave here judging by the look I got from Lynne. We were asked “what news from home, of King James and
how doth the treaty with Spain fare”. Well it was not for me to tell them that old King Jimmy the 1
st has been dead the past 386 years, and that the Spanish are still hammering us at football, now was it.
We visited the pretty little town of Plymouth, where there was a reconstruction of the Mayflower, and we also saw Plymouth Rock were apparently the first English colonists had stepped ashore. We found what we thought was a fairly reasonable motel in Weymouth which was just up the road from Plymouth, funny that. Well it was not all that it seemed, like a lot of the hotels and motels here, the rooms are being used for families on welfare, and while some are deserving cases, just like home some are not. Anyway apart from the kids running up and down outside it was ok.
Day 165……13/09/2012 We negotiated our way through the busy City of Boston, and on to Salem, and just in the nick of time as Christine coughed and cut out with a dead flat battery, something was very wrong. We decided to park up and give it a while to
Plimoth Plantation
Native Wompanog dwelling see if she recovered, or I could get a jumpstart. So we took a stroll around the Salem’s downtown streets, which had their fair share of new age, Wiccan boutiques, and witch themed attractions. One of these being the Salem Witch museum, where we were treated to a factual re-enactment of the persecution and eventual hanging of nineteen of Salem’s townsfolk in 1692, and all this based on the ramblings of a fevered young girl that the doctors could not diagnose, and so feared to be possessed. It is thought likely that she was suffering from the hallucinogenic properties of fermented wheat, or possibly wild mushrooms, a little like Woodstock some 250 years later.
The bike was dead, and reluctantly triple A was called and she was taken to a Triumph dealer not more than half a mile away. He would look into the problem tomorrow, which I thought was a wiring fault up by the ignition somewhere. We called for a taxi to take us to a local Days Inn motel. Well Lynne took one look and said nope we are not staying here, more welfare families. Now we are definitely not snobs, but we do take exception
to open drug dealing, and a young lady selling herself from an overhead balcony. A phone call brought the cabbie back and we were taken to the Salem Inn right in the heart of town, it was a beautiful 17th century period building, a little more expensive than we were used to but as Lynne was a lot happier now it was fine by me. We took a stroll out into the lovely old Salem streets, and if this was not idyllic enough we heard the familiar sound of traditional Irish music emanating from an equally familiar looking Irish bar called O’Neil’s, just a perfect end to a rather stressful day.
Day 166……14/09/2012 Another look around the town this bright sunny morning, with our fingers crossed that the mechanic would locate the problem quickly. Which he did not, well not quickly anyhow. He said it turned out to be a broken wire near the ignition, “eh” and that took him five hours to find, oh well at least we could get on our way, and on top of the labour did not try and sting us for a £650 alternator which he kept hinting at.
We finally
left Salem at around 2pm, and set off on the 200 mile ride to my friend Bobs house in New York State. It was a pretty ride west and just as it got dark the Sat Nav got us to his door.
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