October 14th, 2009

Woke up early in the morning to get a little riding under our belts.  Didn’t want to make the same mistake twice by riding out too late in the day and end up riding at night.  NikonVT recommended a Kawasaki dealership in Laconia to see if they carried a replacement chain for Amanda’s motorbike and that’s where we were off to first.  5 minutes into it and my fingers were numb.  Bright sunny morning, but it was freezing cold.  Got to the dealership and wanted $160 for an OEM Kawasaki chain.  A little too pricey for my blood.  It was a good thing they didn’t have any in stock because I probably would’ve taken the bait.  We pressed onwards.  We were heading towards our next destination at Epsom, NH where Fire Escape offered us a place to shack.  Both NikonVT and Fire Escape recommended a nice scenic route the night before, but we just couldn’t do it.  It was too cold.  Ha!  We called ourselves rough riders?  NikonVT highly recommended heated gloves and swears by them, but it just wasn’t in the budget.  Being as it may, we might have to reconsider.  So instead of the scenic route we shot straight down route 106 towards Loudon and stopped over at the NH Speedway, picked up a chain for $60 at Rhoads Motorsports, and rode on. 



Let's see if we can sneak in and take a closer look...



...getting warmer...



...front row seats!



Vrooooom!





Something interesting in Fire Escape’s response to my thread for tent space came to mind. “Not much room in the house, we are pack rats, been here a long time…got a camper in the yard…”  Ever heard of a show called “Hoarders” on A&E?  That’s what immediately popped into mind the whole ride down towards Epsom.  What a treat!  We don’t have to worry about having nothing to talk about now that we know there’s plenty of conversation pieces to choose from.  We arrived in Epsom in the afternoon and started looking for Fire Escape’s abode.  I think the description he told us to look out for was “the ratty lookin green garage…”  For me, when someone tells me that I automatically picture the worst of the worst.  That way there will be no surprises and anything better is a bonus.   In this case…it was far from the worst.  It was first class. 



Ratty lookin?  Could've fooled me.  Natasha guarding the homestead.



The camper we stayed in.



Interesting POV

When we arrived at Fire Escape’s home we were warned that there will be a dog outside and that she’s very friendly.  So there she was leashed and lying by the driveway.  A beautiful white husky.  Big.  I approached with caution to see if there was anybody home, but the dog started barking.  I wasn’t gonna take any chances.  Fire Escape told us he might be out and about and to make ourselves feel at home so we left our stuff in the camper and wrote a note telling him we went out to look for oil at Wally World.  We rode into Concord, NH to look for a library to zero in on the local store and catch up with family members via email.  After a couple of hours of trying to catch up with the ride report, we called it a day and headed back to base camp to meet up with Fire Escape. 



Concord Public Library



Cold air seeps through gloves.

Fingers start to hurt like hell.

Heated gloves to spare?