Monday, August 21 2023
Day 80
Rochester, New York to Concord, New Hampshire
Miles: 380.07 – Total accent: 16,860 – Hours: 8 hours, 13 minutes
Totals:. Miles- 4,468.1 – Accent- 138,855
351 hrs 48 minutes in the saddle
Once again, we are on storm watch, however, it’s a little different today.
Beginning last Thursday, reports of a Category 4 hurricane-Hilary-is heading up the Baja peninsula towards home, expected to hit our area Sunday/Monday.
Looking ahead for our week on the east coast, we see storms expected on Friday and throughout the weekend.
What to do?
Throughout the tour, a recurring theme is the unusual weather patterns. Excessive rain has caused lots of mosquitoes. Everyone comments how different and bizarre the weather has been. Constantly weighing and measuring risks versus rewards…do we travel north or south? Getting to Bar Harbor is important but safety is the top priority. After much discussion, we come up with Plan B. We rent a car, load the bikes and luggage and head east. Thinking we could find a bike shop in Concord to ship our bikes, we opted for a small car. After all, we have now mastered the Tetris of packing. A bit of maneuvering and both gravel bikes and everything we have is in! We did find a bike shop that had great reviews but when we stopped in to talk with them it was a no-go. Okay. No problem. We’ll try another place either later today or tomorrow.
It was now nearly 11 and ‘second coffee’ sounded amazing. I’d never been to a Tim Horton’s which seemed to be popular in the area. Yes! I will take a vanilla latte! Oh, all the yummy indulgences we’ll give up once we return!!
We add two more states-Vermont and New Hampshire-to our list of states. The day was cool and dry. And the landscape so very beautiful, similar to the Pacific Northwest…lush with hills.
As we enter Concord, we look for a place to eat and find a restaurant that looks to be busy-110 Grill. And what an incredible experience it was! They offer all their foods on a gluten free menu! It was amazing and our server was just perfect. It has been a long day on the road. We continue to watch the weather in Southern California, receiving updates from friends and family back home. We are told the worse is yet to come and pray for our neighbors. Some areas are still recovering from burn scars making them vulnerable to heavy rain and mudslides. Safe, we settle in for the night and discuss our plans for tomorrow. We will make it Bar Harbor, come hell or high water, albeit, it looks like both are imminent!