The goal today was to get Laconia, NH. I was talking to another Harley guy and told him the story about how disappointed I was not to be able to get a good t-shirt when the state of New Hampshire had license to the “Live Free or Die” motto. He told me that he got a very cool shirt at the Harley dealer in Laconia, and that’s about half way between Bangor & Albany (our next real destination) so it works out perfectly. But before we get out on the road, I need to tell you about our dinner last night. First night in Bangor we went to “my” kinda place, you’ll remember that one with the too big to eat lobster rolls. Okay – this time through we are going for something more Robin’s style. Fiddlehead Restaurant seems to fit the bill so here we go.
Bloody Maria & chardonnay – note the fiddlehead garnish.
Nice place to start with in an older part of town in an old building that originally must have been a library or something (we should have asked). Anyway – after looking at the drink menu I just had to order a Bloody Maria with pickled fiddlehead garnish vs. celery. Our appetizer was a cheese plate but you couldn’t see any cheese (a piece of some kind of soft cheese about half the size of my little finger was wrapped in puff pastry). Next was a miniscule salad made with dandilion greens – it was okay. As you can see from the presentation and the explanations of the food, this place is way above my pay grade. Robin however enjoyed the experience and the food thoroughly – and that was the whole reason for coming.
My fillet on a bed of roasted beet risotto with artichoke hearts on top & some kind of cheese all around. Robin’s meatloaf on a bed of cauliflower mashed potatoes topped with pickled onions.
I told you how bad the roads are here especially in town. Well, I was going to just let it go but while we were at dinner some poor guy went by walking his bike up the hill with the bent up front wheel straight up in the air. His face was pretty scratched up and he was bleeding from his chin. Now – I don’t know for sure what happened but he very easily could have fallen victim to one or more of the billion or so cracks and pot holes and face planted. Some of these things are big enough to wreck a motorcycle, I would not ride at night here unless I knew the route’s road hazards – the man hole crater is right in the middle of the lane, not too much of a problem for cars but a motorcycle going slow would be down.
These Roads!! It’s very hard to capture depth. The man hole cover pot hole is at least 8 inches deep. Both of these are right in the middle of intersections.
Riding the back roads has it’s bad points, mostly related to not being able to put many miles behind you but today we had a section of road that was particularly bad. I wasn’t going to say anything since I just got done complaining about the roads in Bangor but Robin and I were both airborne and I think the only thing that kept the bike on the ground was the trailer. I think it was a frost heave repair – new asphalt about 4 feet front to back and all the way across the road. In the shadows of the trees you can’t see depth and even if I’d seen it I doubt that I would have been able to slow much from 40 mph. I just shook my head but Robin got enough of a whiplash effect from the weight of her helmet whipping her head around, that we had to stop so she could take some headache medicine.
Riding toward the light
Other than that – the ride today was fairly uneventful. I was punished for yesterday’s hubris though. Remember, I said something about how people should be thanking us for their good weather because we are bringing it with us wherever we go? Today we were on the run again. About 50 miles from Laconia the sky got dark, about 10 miles later we started getting rained on; not heavy but maybe middle click on your delay wipers rain (enough to eventually make you wet). We were riding hard toward the light though and even though the rain got worse before it got better, we did get out before the skies opened up. Kinda like a surfer just getting out of the tube before the whole thing collapses and sends him crashing into the coral.
Laconia Harley Davidson is getting ready for this weekend’s rally. The Laconia rally is the oldest motorcycle rally in the United States & it’s big stuff out here. It’s a shame we’re going to miss it – NOT. Naturally, most of the t-shirts have something about the rally on them but I managed to find one that didn’t say anything about the rally and had a pretty good “Live Free or Die” silk screen on the back (it has skulls though, Robin doesn’t like skulls so much)….
while not perfect was pretty good and didn’t have anything about the rally on it.