Day 7: Mt. Washington -> Waterford, VT - 64 miles “‘Adventure’ Cycling”

Today we put the adventure back into adventure cycling. The morning was ours when, after an overwhelming buffet breakfast at the lodge, we had a 3 mile straight descent from the White Mountains. Following Google Maps, we took a B road to continue on towards our Warmshowers that evening. Much to our interest / dismay, we discovered that it was a gravel road. Both Mark and I are running road slicks on our bikes... Little did I know it then, but that would be the tone for much of the day. The gravel roads were both good and bad. There was no car traffic, and the roads were super remote allowing for a better immersion with nature. Many of the vistas we saw throughout the day and the constant mountainous surroundings are not done justice to in the pictures! On the other hand, the constant jostling and running over rocks jostled you to the bone. It wasn’t very comfortable, or fast. In addition, Mark and I decided to make bout a 5 mile detour to find some kind of store to buy lunch. We were really in the middle of nowhere today.
It turned out to be a long day. Between the never ending gravel, a few wrong turns, and the incompetence of Google Maps, a 50 mile proposed day turned into a 64 mile adventure. At the end, we had to climb up more gravel for about 3 miles to reach our WarmShowers hosts, who run a farm. They are really great. The son did a cross-country tour 3 years ago. Additionally, there they have all kinds of off-roading machines. Haven’t driven any, but they’re fun to look at. The family is really nice, they have 4 dogs and 4 cats. We were fed a MASSIVE dinner of spaghetti and meat sauce. Then these beautiful maple syrup bars with ice cream for dessert #1, finishing with strawberry shortcake for dessert #2. Finally, we were driven in the truck (proper field off-roading) to their neighbors vista to look at the sunset and the White Mountains. A really great way to round out the night. Our sleeping accommodations are two couches; also excellent. It was a lot of food/ I’m nearly comatose now, and fighting off sleep (a losing battle). I’m starting a new segment below where I write down some more of the stats from the cycling computer. Nothing that interesting!
TM: 6:01, AVS: 10.6, ST: 64.10