Loose Lug Nuts

We arrived at the Burlington Doubletree Hotel at 7:15 p.m., much later than we expected. We didn't leave Waterville Valley until around 11, needing to pack up, change seats on my bike, make a fee calls and fuel up.

Around noon, 42 miles into the trip and a few miles short of Bath NH on Rte 112, we had our first mishap. Riding at 45-50 mph and traveling around a bend, my rear wheel suddenly began to wobble; a very strange and scary thing. I started to lose control but there were no cars behind me and I was able to pull over safely. Eric, riding ahead of me, didn't see what happened so it took a few minutes before he returned. It took us a while to diagnose the problem. Believe it or not the lug nuts on the rear wheel were nearly off. We were shocked. We wondered whether someone had it in for us.

We had no tools with us and we had no cell phone signal. There was however, a college kid from Hofstra spending the Jewish holidays along the river bank by himself sifting for gold. He told us Bath was five miles away. So I rested against a tree while Eric headed on his bike to Bath to see what he could find.

I fell asleep and woke up 75 minutes later when Eric returned from his mission. He had been to a few places and found a metric socket wrench. We were then able to tighten the lug nuts enough to get us to the
Kawasaki dealer


15 miles away. The mechanic there used a power wrench to tighten them further.

All in all I was lucky to have been going relatively slow and to have been riding on a back road. Just another reminder to always be on my toes when riding. Anything can happen at any time.
Readers, please don't mention this to anyone who cares about me. Thanks.

By the time we got going again, it was after 3 p.m. The route to Burlington on rte 302 was beautiful, the trees mostly green and yellow with a smattering of red. A week or two from now will be stunning.

It's now 8:30 p.m. and we just heard about Francona's Red Sox resignation. We're hungry but we want to see the upcoming press conference on TV. Church Street can wait.

The forecast is for heavy rain tomorrow so we could be sticking around for a couple of days. That's fine. I'm sure we'll have fun no matter what happens.

Until tomorrow....
G.


- Posted from George's AT&T
iPhone

Location:Burlington, VT

Year Three, Day One; It Stopped Raining, Finally!

I thought this year's trip might never happen. Eric and I have been waffling over past few months about where to go. We talked about Patagonia, Norway, Colorado, the Northwest and more. Given our schedules, the stock market dive and our general procrastination, we ended up staying close to home.
I'm actually fine with this decision. It allows us more flexibility and I finally get to try Eric and Celia's new bikes; a BMW R1200RT and R1150R. Absolutely gorgeous machines with all conceivable options.

We are sitting at a local coffee shop here in Waterville Valley, mapping out day one. We had originally planned to go to Quebec or Cape Breton Island but the forecast is for more rain, lots of it. Hopefully we can avoid some of it by heading west. Today we've decided on Burlington, VT where we might spend the night or alternatively catch a Lake Champlain ferry over to New York State.

It's been pouring for a few days so there are lots of wet leaves on the ground. We'll have to take it easy. Regardless of the weather, it should be a blast. It's great to be with Eric again and to engage in the endless back and forth banter. Hopefully, for awhile at least, he can forget about the legal case he's leading and I can let go of Sunday Patriots game, the epic Red Sox collapse and last night's ugly Huskies loss to Delaware.

Eric wants to get going so i need to stop typing. We'll try to do a nightly update.


We're off like a heard of Turtles!

G.



Sent from my iPad