Cold ride yesterday

I went for a ride yesterday and damn near froze my butt off! It was way colder than I expected. I cut the ride short and made myself a hot beverage when I got home. Brrrr! Where is that spring?

Great ride today

As I planned yesterday, I did go on a ride today. I started by giving the bike its Spring Bath (it usually gets very few baths, so this is special :) ). I then rode over to North Star where my older son Jonah does most of his home schooling. The staff there was interviewing parents of teens who go there for a video clip to put on their web site. I did my interview and just as I finished the interview my riding buddy Bill pulled up to the building (as per prior arrangement). We left Hadley around 1 pm and headed over the Rt. 9 bridge to Northampton and from there north towards Deerfield on Rt. 5 and 10. From Deerfield we took 116 north to Ashfield, which is the best piece of motorcycling road around here and is probably a mini Dragon. From Ashfield we took 112 north to Vermont border and in Vermont we took Rt. 100 north to Rt. 9 east, which is another amazing road with a great overlook of the valley to the south and east. Rt. 9 east leads straight to Brattleboro, which was our tentative coffee break stop. We had our respective beverages in a great little coffee shop (I had tea, Bill had coffee) and headed out of town on Rt. 5 over the Connecticut River to New Hampshire, where the same road becomes Rt. 119. We followed this rode along the river to Hinsdale, NH where it meets Rt. 63. We took Rt. 63 south (again along Connecticut River) all the way to Massachusetts. By the time I got home around 6 pm I had 140 miles on my trip odometer covering 3 New England states. That's one of my favorite loops around here. But not the only one.