July 13, 2010 — Vermont
I skipped into Vermont briefly. Originally, I had planned to bike north to Island Pond, which has been described to me as very pretty, but my body was aching after the ride into Littleton and I decided that I should shorten my days a little, let my legs recover and enjoy the scenery.
While riding from Littleton, N.H., to Lancaster, N.H., I zipped across the Connecticut River on another one of them wooden covered bridges. This one, the Mount Orne Covered Bridge, had been relegated to pedestrian and bicycle use because a couple of dim-witted truck drivers had tried to steer semi-tractor trailers across it.
I happened to meet a cyclist at the bridge who gave me advice about getting to Lancaster, mainly that I should ride the Vermont side of the river. The New Hampshire side would get hilly between the Mount Orne bridge and Lancaster. The Vermont side proved to have nice wide shoulders, a bit more traffic.
The cyclist who rode with me told me that they had had a shooting recently. The farmer on the hill apparently didn't like the stink of manure that another neighbor farmer in the dell was spreading on his cornfields. Having ridden past the aforementioned stink, I find great sympathy for the hill farmer.
But back to New Hampshire where the motto is "Live Free or Die," which would make sense if there were a choice to be made.
If you have a Twitter account, become a follower of Riding the White Line. Just don't expect too many tweets while we're not on tour.
