Dartmouth, the longest covered bridge and Robert Mitchum…

What do those three things have in common? They were all a part of ride from Norwich to Fitzwilliam. The day started with breakfast at the room of the Norwich inn that we bought at the “Dan and Whit’s Country Store next door with the motto: “if we don’t sell it you don’t need it”. We went across the bridge into Hanover and visit Dartmouth campus briefly. I wanted to see the frescos at the basement of the library but it was closed until 8, so I saw a little bit through the window. We rode on Route 10 and then 12 A in New Hampshire. We were happy with the road by the Connecticut River going up and down the hillside into small towns. We were ready for our second breakfast when I saw a bigger town on the VT side, Windsor and were happy to be able to cross the river through one of the covered bridges of VT. It was actually the longest (see picture above). After a regular breakfast at the local diner, two eggs over easy with toast and potatoes and I also had a blueberry pancake. We went back to NH and continues on route 12 A and then 12, leaving the river and going up a big hill into Keene. This area is beautiful but very hilly, the Monadnock mountains…After going up to Keene, a medium city in our map I was tired, my legs felt like jello and had the bad feeling there were not be many hotels for another 30 miles. We had done already 64 miles with 3,000 feet of climbing and there were more mountains on the way. I tried to suggest we could stay in a nice Best Western with free wi fi, but Steve was on a mission to get closer to Massachusetts. So we went, and continued to climb into Troy, Steve said for sure there is a place to stay…wrong. We asked two women who were drinking in a porch with a Great Dane dog. There was no place in Troy, there might be an Inn in Fitzwilliam 4 more miles uphill but information did not have a phone number for the place… I was so tired I could not even complain and had a bad feeling it was not open. There was no choice; we weren’t going back so we kept pedaling. In 4 miles we were in Fitzwilliam, and we found the “Historic Fitzwilliam Inn from 1796”. The door was open, there was a rug outside on the porch and there were loud sounds of a vacuum cleaner. Even though I am the one that usually finds out about the rooms, I sent Steve, I was not very hopeful. The good news was that even though the couple that bought the building in an auction were still remodeling a number of the rooms were finished and we were their first guests! So why Robert Mitchum? Our room in the second floor by the stairs was the one used by Robert when he would visit his son who lived in Troy, NH, there were many of his pictures and a biography book where I learned a lot of useless trivia. We had our usual shower and walked to the only restaurant in town, then walked back to the Inn under the almost full moon, ready to go to bed for our last day of riding.