Boston to Jenness Beach

We had an excellent first day on the road and biked almost 68 miles in the humid and hot summer of New England. We left Jamaica Plain at 6:30 AM and did pretty well trying to get out 0f Boston until we reached Charlestown. The directions that Steve got from George, a friend from bike journal were a confusing at times.

After 16 miles of riding and no breakfast I began to get a little cranky, and was about to give in and go to Honey Dew donuts, a step up from "Dunkin' Donuts" when I spotted "The Blue Moon Cafe" in Greenwood, MA. It was the perfect place, since you had to go through the kitchen to get to the bathroom, deserving of the Bike to Breakfast website. After breakfast we got lost again and thankfully Steve listened to my complaining and got a map of Massachusets so we found our way after all but probably did a few extra miles.

After getting out of the city traffic we went through some pretty country with marshes on both sides of the road and some spectacular views of rivers and the Atlantic ocean.

We stopped for a snack at lunch in a cute old diner and an outstanding smoothie in a beach town in New Hampshire, called Secret Spot. By then we were sore (butt and feet), very hot and sweaty. The smoothie helped us get a little closer to Portsmouth in Jenness Beach.

We are now cooler, cleaned and had a great dinner at the Carriage House, seafood chowder, salmon and a great fruit crisp with ice cream. Tomorrow we are hoping to get to Portland but will be stopping along the way for breakfast in Portsmouth at the Friendy Toast cafe.

It's a wet heat

The phrase of the day is: "but it's a wet heat"... It is definitely hot and humid in Boston today. Steve put the Surlys together this morning while I went for a long run to keep up with my "Ironman" training. The goal was to do 13 miles or 2.5 hours running which I did in spite of getting lost around mile 10. I learned you can cover many cities and/or neighborhoods in that distance, starting in Jamaica Plain, to downtown, along the Charles River and accross to Cambridge and back to Brookline. After making the wrong turn I found my way back to Liz's house. We went for brunch to "The Centre street Cafe", highly recommended because of the delicious food and the great service. In the afternoon Steve and I tried our bikes and the route out of Boston for tomorrow morning. We are off to dinner in a little bit to the North End where there are many Italian restaurants. We are expecting two more days of temperatures in the 80's and then it might rain and cool down (we hope).

Made it to Boston...

...just in time for record high temps. Doesn't seem fair coming from Tucson :-) Warm and humid but very nice to be here. Our friend Liz picked us up at the airport and we're reunited with the Surlys. Tomorrow morning it will be time to put them back to together and go for a test ride around Boston. Monday morning it will be on the road to Portsmouth, NH.

Time to get serious

The Surlys made it to Boston and the plane leaves tomorrow morning so it must be time to pack. Time to throw in the panniers and racks and bike stuff and a fleece just in case summer ends while we're still there. Going through the list and checking it twice. Including a 3 into 1 plug so we don't have to fight over the outlets for recharging the numerous 'essential' gadgets. Each of us of course needs a phone, GPS, and camera, and then there's the shared netbook. So only 7 chargers! After a short ride in the morning with hopefully a stop a Le Buzz it will be time for the trip to airport. Our recent luck with flights on vacations hasn't been that great, but I'll probably get in trouble with Patricia for mentioning it, so don't tell her...

Prep continues and goodbye to a dear puppy

Lots of activity this week as we continue to get ready. The very sad part was putting Patricia's faithful pup Nacha to sleep after 15 plus years of companionship. She went peacefully on her favorite blanket with her humans by her side.

Our new netbook arrived in the mail. It's mostly set up and ready to go, so the odds of getting regular blog updates has increased. And thanks to a very nice BikeJournal.com friend in the Boston area we have a nice route from where we will be near downtown all the way to Portsmouth, NH. Thanks George!

We will start some early packing tomorrow and try to minimize our airline baggage charges :-)

The Surlys are on the way!

We borrowed the GABA club bike boxes and packed up the Surlys for their trip to the east coast. We're sending them ahead to our friend Liz's place in Boston to avoid the current airline rates. On American Airlines at the moment it would end up being $150 per bicycle each way to use the bike boxes, or $600 total for the trip. Mailing them via FedEx ground takes a week and costs less than half. Hopefully we'll see them again in Boston! Only 9 days till departure, time to start looking at the maps a little more closely :-)

Happy Birthday, Steve!

Today is Steve's 51st birthday, he finally has to accept he IS older than me. It is the first B-day he spends in Argentina. Still enjoying the last 24 hours of winter weather in the Southern Hemisphere. We'll miss the "cortados en jarrita" at our favorite "office" spot at Cafe La Distincion.