Concord, New Hampshire

So beautiful...

When leaving Montpelier, I thought it'd be a great idea to get a traditional breakfast from some boutique café in town. Unfortunately for me, each café as jam-packed full of "leafers" (like myself, regrettably) and the table wait times were very long. So instead I thought I'd head out to the nearest town and find a place to eat on the way.

As I rode inside the next town the only place that seemed to be open was Dunkin' Donuts. What the hell, how bad could it be? I got myself a "Big N' Toasted" sandwich... which was pretty fucking disgusting. Why is there so much oil on the outside of the bread? Who makes a sandwich and butters the outside? I guess it was fried but eww. However, I did manage to get talking to a motorcyclist who suggested I head to a particular small town (whose name I've since forgotten) to get some good scenery, so a successful breakfast nonetheless.

Vermont and the typical house architecture.

The rain had cleared up and it was a beautiful day for riding. Lots of windy backroads and red, orange and yellow foliage. I eventually made it to my target town and stopped in a local bar for some wood-fired pizza. Damn I was hungry.

Here I got talking to Dino, a fellow motorcyclist who lived (from memory) in New York state. He owned a beautiful vintage Triumph Bonneville, and was riding around with some of his mates up in here Vermont. We talked bikes and I told him about by tour so far.

It was kind of funny because initially he had a misconception of me due to my helmet sitting on the chair next to me. My helmet is very sports-bikey; a bit flashy, modern and of course full-face (open face helmets kind of scare me, my face is as important as my head!). Apparently sports-bike people kind of insufferable in America, and don't like associating to tourers or cruiser riders. Funny because I technically would be a sports-bike rider back in Australia. But once he worked out that I was touring not some sort of weekend race boy we got along fine. He introduced me to his friends and they let me tag along with their group for the rest of the day.

"One stuffed moose please"

One of the members of the group either worked for or contributed to the American Motorcycle Association (AMA) magazine. To which I'm a member by the way! I've got the card and everything. He seemed to know some good routes through the area, and took photos of us one handed as we rode in the pack. Something I wish I could do but my SLR is way too bulky - this is what the GoPro was for. But who knows, I might be in an issue of the AMA magazine!

The AMA guy took us to this crazy little store in Glover that sold an eclectic plethora of items. What was particularly peculiar was the stuffed animals strewn around the store. There was an awesome stuffed moose in the middle where you could just see where it had been shot in the fur.

We all rode together and I took lots of photos and video. Eventually we ended up at a brewery that was unfortunately closed. Eventually we all parted ways, but it was fantastic to spend some time with some fellow riders. Some of images of the ride follow.

Dino stands next to me on the right.

Later that afternoon I had to head down to Concord, New Hampshire to stay with my new couch surfing host, Heidi. It was getting pretty cold, and I was still using my ultra-cool summer jacket, so I didn't want to hang around too long before dark. Heidi was a middle-aged teacher who lived in a beautiful old house in Concord. Since I arrived a bit after dinner, she gave me some great corn chowder and I headed to bed pretty early. This was a rare occasion where I got my own room and bed from a couch surfing host!

Montpelier, Vermont

Somewhere in Vermont.

Despite the apparent meandering nature of my motorcycle route there was a general plan: Hit the top of the US while it was not snowing and then be down south to miss the cold. As part of that, I had planned to see Vermont in the Autumn (fall as Americans call it) to see the leaves turning colour. This is when it was supposed to be the most beautiful  and will attract tourists from surrounding states (called "leafers" by the locals with a little resentment). I originally wanted get to Maine as well, but that was going to suck up a little too much time. In the end it would have just been too rushed, meaning I'd only hit Maine to knock it off of my US 'visited states' list. And while seeing the most of the lower 48 states was awesome, it wasn't the main goal of this trip.

The problem now was that it was starting to get a little too cold in the northern states. This explains my haste during this leg of the trip. To spend a good amount of time in Boston and NYC I'd have to move pretty quickly before I could head south to warmer weather. NYC especially was a huge draw card, so I sacrificed a bit of time up in New England and Canada to get more NYC action.

Taken from Montpelier.

I passed from Canada to the US without too much trouble, although the US border patrol was a little more strict than the Canadian one. First I had to take my helmet off, no surprise there. Then I got all the questions I had to answer back at my visa interview in Australia. How are you able to afford this? What's your job? Why are they letting you take so much time off? What's the plan from here on out? When do you go back home? 

Then I got some questions on what I was doing in Canada which were a little weird at first. For example: Did I see the fireworks in Ottawa? There were supposed to be some fireworks on at the time I was there and I think he was trying to figure out if my Canadian story checked out. But after 10 minutes or so of grilling they finally let me through.

Vermont - but this is what up-state New York looks like.

I tell you what, it was a bit of a relief to be back in the US. It felt like arriving home again. My phone now could do data, back to MPH, cheaper food, familiar business chains and I knew that my motorcycle insurance was valid (I wasn't too sure about it when I went into Canada).

There are many moments when I had not attached the GoPro when I really wish I did. This was one of them: Up-State New York was beautiful. Extremely picturesque with vivid green pastures and old-style farmhouses. You don't get that shit anywhere in Australia, it just looks so... American. 

Usually out of time constraints or bad weather I would sometimes leave the GoPro off. It was raining in Montreal when I left, plus I didn't think the border patrol wanted to be filmed so it wasn't on that day. Note: Due to my lack of photography motivation on this day, the images in this post are actually from the next day (when I took a lot more photos)!

I like sky.

I passed through the quaint little town of Burlington, then headed straight down to Montpelier. When I arrived I still had no accommodation booked. Before I left Montreal I looked at Hotwire (a hotel booking website) to see if anything was available in the town. There were quite a few results, so I thought I'd easily be able to book a hotel when I arrived. 

Turns out I was looking at the wrong Montpelier - I had accidentally searched for Montpelier, VA (Virginia) rather than Montpelier, VT (Vermont). So when I pulled over to the main street and looked at Hotwire again, there was only one hotel available for $275 a night. Shit. Other sites such as Priceline were not getting me anything better.

I had inadvertently parked outside a fancy-pants-looking hotel, so I went inside and asked them where I could find cheap accommodation as there was no way I wanted to fork out the money for this hotel. Turns out they had a room that was hard to get rid off as it was too small for most people. And they gave it to me for a very good rate. That night I was glad to be out of the cold and in a room, which was one of the nicer places I stayed in so far.

Not that I think I was in too much trouble, I probably could have ridden to the next town to find more rooms. But I still had no tent, so my options were pretty limited, I needed to find a hotel room otherwise I was a little fucked. Compounding the issue, it was starting to snow in some of the higher areas of Vermont.

The pulled pork beast.

That night I went to a bar recommended by the hotel staff for beer and a burger. I had one of the biggest burgers I've ever eaten. The burger contained a huge beef patty topped with pulled pork. Kind of like a cardiac arrest double whammy. Fucking delicious though, and the local Vermont beer was fantastic.

I talked to the locals and the bartender, apparently some Aussies were at this bar a week ago and were challenged to a drinking contest with one of the staff. Typical Aussies. They lost pretty badly, turns out the staff member was some sort of competitive drinker, whatever the hell that is. Guess there isn't much to do up here in the winter months?

The next day I head down to New Hampshire to meetup with a couch surfing host in Concord. But I got a fair bit of good Vermont riding in on the way!