I JUST WANT 2 RIDE!!

Waking up to the roar of motorcycles outside our window had me jazzed to start this leg of our vacation!  Riding to the top of Mt. Washington is an item on my motorcycling bucket list, and it is about to get checked off.  But first, the most important meal of the day breakfast! 

We were in a McDonald’s mood so we stopped at the one just up the street from the hotel.  Turns out this is a “Skiing Themed” McDonald’s with six old gondola’s now serving as tables and lots of antique ski equipment scattered around “ski lodge” type paneling, very unique and very cool!  OH… and who had ever heard of Lobster Rolls at a McDonald’s? After topping off our bellies and the motorcycle’s tank we hit the road. About 45 minutes later we were at the base of Mt. Washington about to ride up the auto road.  

Mt. Washington at 6,288 feet is the highest peak in the Northeastern United States.  You can click on the link to see all the details but here are some highlights; fast wind speed ever recorded (not associated with a hurricane) and on average it snows every month of the year.  During the summer the temperatures can often be 40 or more degrees cooler at the top then the base of the mountain.  On our accent we started at a temp of 70F by the time we reached the summit the temperature was a crisp 42F. There will be a second post on our ride up and down Mt. Washington as Debbie filmed both the accent and decent of the mountain.  I will publish it at a later date after I have time to work on the raw footage.

Another interesting fact is that the operators of the auto road has contingencies for people that make it to the top and then do not want to drive their cars back to the bottom.  If you happen to be one of those folks you can take the train back to the base or ride down in a passenger van.  The operators will then drive your car to the bottom, for a fee of course! 

After getting back down we stripped off the layers (the temperature was now 76F) and headed east.  Our goal was ambitious, we wanted to reach Bar Harbor, Maine.  You can tell by the title of the post we only made it to Bangor before we called it a day.  The plan now is to get up early and get on the road to Bar Harbor and Arcadia National Park.