Swan in the wetlands by the coast

New Hampshire Farmhouse

These New Englanders are crazy about their history, of course. Every village has a marker about its own Revolutionary General. Yesterday we rode through Dunbarton, the hometown of General John Stark, an admirable man indeed.

But today we passed a memorial to Hannah Dustin. Hannah was carried away by Indians and taken to an island. But with her 10-year-old compatriot, she killed all the Indians, scalped them, and escaped back to home ground.

Don't mess with Hannah Dustin!

We got our bikes all put together today and got on the road. The wonderful folks at Alternative Bike helped us get all set and gave us an idea where to go. Our first little loop before family reunion on Saturday is to ride up and over toward the coast and back down toward Exeter. We're riding this afternoon in a light rain, sometimes heavier, and just working our way north.

Here's what we did with our actual route:

• Manchester, NH around several circles visiting relatives and going to a family reunion, then heading north to Dover, NH
• Dover, NH north to Gorham, NH over Evans Notch
• Gorham, NH up to Magog, Quebec and back down to West Barnet, VT
• West Barnet, VT down to Canaan, NH
• Georges Mills, NH to Manchester, NH to complete the loop.

Our last night out we stayed with Nancy's brother Dan near Canaan, which was too far to make Manchester in one day and still get our bikes packed. So Dan's friend Todd kindly gave us about a 30 mile headstart by driving us with our bikes to Georges Mills, which also gave us a more pleasant route.

We're starting to keep closer and closer track of our budget, because we want to make a realistic budget for the big trip (from the Arctic Circle to the bottom of South America) which we hope to start next year (in 2006!).

So here's our budget for this one. We'll see how we do. We're figuring about $20/day/person. That will come out to about $400/person (not including airfare or shipping the bikes both ways). Hopefully we can do it!

Pictures from the Mexico trip:

• The story of our trip

More Detailed Maps:

• Colorado
• Utah and Wyoming
• Southern Idaho
• Central Idaho and Montana
• Montana, Idaho, and Eastern Washington
• Washington and British Columbia
• Complete Detailed map with driving instructions (strip maps) in PDF format (BIG file: 3.2MB)