Boys being boys in the hotel lobby
The trails today we a little bit of snow, a little bit of granite. We managed to get about 90 miles on the sleds though. I’ve been asked in the comments about the snow here, quite frankly, they need some snow. But we’ll come back to that later.
This morning started in the small cafe with a diner counter to belly up to. I’m pretty sure the old dude cooking was named Tom. He had a tattoo on his forearm that said “TOM” that looked like he got on $1.00 Letter Day at the Tattoo Shop… I’ve never understood getting your own name tatted on your body… kinda like having “NiCK” tattooed on your arm when your name is Nick. Anyway, back on topic, breakfast was included with our room charge and the choices were french toast with diced potatoes or a breakfast sandwich with diced potatoes. It did the job and the conversation with Tom was worth the price of admission.
After breakfast, we had to run down the road about a mile to the local hardware to get our New Hampshire trail permits ($149 American for us out of staters) The people here in Plymouth have been very friendly and strike up conversation with us pretty readily, especially when they see our Michigan license plates. 6 guys went first with 2 trucks while the other 6 unloaded their sleds, and the process reversed when the trucks returned. We were on the trails, I think, by about 10:30am.
I’m not going to dwell on the trails, they just need snow. We still rode, took our breaks, shot the snot with each other and the comradery we have more than made up for the trails we rode. The trails are thin, lots of rocks exposed, tree limbs and one stretch through a field we literally rode on grass for several hundred yards. One thing that was very noticeable, however, was when crossing roads, most passenger vehicles stop and allow our group to cross the road unencumbered. Very thoughtful and very appreciated.
I guess there was some excitement on the trail. When we departed just about all of us needed fuel, and instead of riding down the asphalt road about a half mile to the nearest gas station, we chose to ride the trail to the first gas station. The first gas station wound up being about 15 miles down the trail, and I think most of us rolled in with zero bars on our electronic fuel gauges, and the bright orange gas pump lit up on our dashes. But we made it.
Birthday Day Boy
We returned to the Common Man Lodge around 4:30pm, parked our trail hardened sleds and proceeded to shower and quench our thirst at the 10 person elongated bar top in the restaurant/bar. We have a birthday to celebrate, Hedgehog Phil is celebrating the big 60 today! Happy Birthday Phil!
Due to the low snow conditions, we are contemplating trailering to tomorrow night’s destination. Reports are that the trails are not much better going east. We will have a few adult beverages, come up with a plan, and you will find in due time. However, those same reports also are telling us that there is plenty of snow in Maine, we just need to fast forward to there.
Anywho, that’s about all I’ve got for today.
Bye for now,
Stick
