Day 4 – 9/5/2016
Lewiston, ME to Southeast MA
~266 miles

The Ramada Conference Center in Lewiston is pretty nice and might make a great spot for a rally HQ some day (hint to Rallymasters reading this). Breakfast wasn’t included but the on-site restaurant had a $5.99 buffet so not much to complain about. When I asked, they allowed me to park under the front awning next to the front door, so that qualifies as motorcycle friendly in my book. I spent some time after dinner last night, planning the route for our final trip leg home, deciding to take us further west through NH to get another bonus stop in Weare and to hopefully route us successfully around all the holiday weekend traffic that I knew would be heading south from ME and NH on the interstates.

After stopping to admire the road grime built up on the bike from this trip, we were headed out by 8am.

We picked our way west through Poland, ME on some back roads I’d chosen blindly off the mapping program, and they weren’t too bad. In Casco, we stopped for a bonus photo of the “President Towns Signpost”:

We proceeded through Naples ME and over to pick up Rte 117, which brought us into NH. This was a very fun road until we hit the state line, when you could notice a difference in priorities (and perhaps asphalt composition) between the two states and the road turned into a frost heave nightmare with loose gravel scattered everywhere.

Cruised through Eaton NH and zig-zagged over to Rte 113 (BONE). Recent intel was that this was a great road recently paved and I was excited to try it. Wow, what a fun curvy ride and we hit barely any traffic in front of us for the entire 40 miles or so. We hit Rte 132 (BONE) and followed that parallel to I-93, but this was apparently the wrong time of week to ride this road, as there was a bunch of traffic heading south SLOWLY in front of us, so I was eager to be done with it and jump on the slab for a quick blast down to Concord before we cut over to Weare and then south on back roads.

We got on 93 at exit 22, just went by exit 20 and too late realized our mistake. Traffic just stopped. Dead. It took us maybe 45 minutes to get 2 miles to the next exit, which was actually only an entrance ramp on the southbound side. Once I realized what we were facing, I made my decision to either find a cut through the median to the northbound side or to somehow get us down the exit 19 entrance ramp. There was absolutely no way I was going to stay in that stop and go parking lot for 8+ miles to the next proper exit, just wasn’t happening. Too hot and it was the type of situation where you can get rear-ended way too easily. When we hit the exit 19 entrance ramp opening, I pulled over. Just ahead, there was a median cut-through, but we were already on the right side of the highway and the ramp was a downslope. I decided to (legally, I think) WALK my 700+ bike down the ramp to get out of this mess. I was past caring what it looked like. Took us maybe 10 minutes to get it down there, walking the bike along the curb in the small breakdown strip, but not really a big deal. Cars were going up the ramp and then reversing back past us when they realized the jam they were about to enter on the highway.

At the bottom, we took a minute to cool off and get our bearings. One guy passing by stopped to make sure we were OK and hadn’t crashed. I was grateful and just pointed up to the overpass saying “No way I was staying in that mess”. He told me the jam was solid all the way to exit 14 in Concord. After he left a rider with his young daughter riding pillion stopped and gave us some advice about getting past the jam. He suggested 132, but I knew that road was going to be getting worse as people sought to bypass 93. I suggested 127 and he agreed that would get us down to 89 where we could jog over to Weare. So that’s what we did and though it took some time to shake off the foul mood from the traffic snarl, 127 was actually a pretty enjoyable road that I’d not ridden before, which was helpful to have something to focus on. We made our way without further incident or traffic to Weare, where I took the last bonus photo of the trip of a sign with the town name in it.

The rest of the ride down through NH was enjoyable, running Rtes 77, 13 and 122 to get through Hollis (DD stop) and back into MA. Cut through Pepperell MA to 119 in Groton and then home free on 495 back home. We felt a bit like we’d been through a wringer on this trip with the various stresses coming from all sides it seemed, but we’d also ridden a lot of great roads, satisfied a long-time desire to visit Quoddy Head Light, and completed my bonus quest in Maine and NH for the Americana tour. Hopefully the next run will have somewhat less drama! (though what kind of boring tale would that make?)

Some stats:
Total Trip Miles: ~1017
Americana Bonuses grabbed: 13
Tags moved: 2
Quarts of oil consumed: 10
Minutes ridden in rain: 0