By bike is resting

...for the evening. Time for dinner & a little more wandering.

I arrived at my home for the night and was promptly greeted with a welcome snack (lemonade and chocolate chip cookies, yum!), and a home for both me and my bike. I'm staying at the Portsmouth Harbor Inn & Spa, which very nicely had one room available when I called yesterday. It's in Kittery, Maine - just across the river from Portsmouth, New Hampshire. And Portsmouth with a myriad of choices for dinner is just a short walk away.




My home for the night, a very welcome sight



A star to welcome me to the house...


One of the things that I asked when I called for a reservation was if there was a safe place for my bike to spend the night. I never ask if I can bring the bike to a motel room (I just roll it in if I'm staying in a motel or hotel - it belongs in my room, doesn't it?), but somehow that often doesn't work in a bed & breakfast. My bike was quite happy to stay in the entryway of the inn - inside the building, not on the porch. So it was locked in for the night. That works!




My bike is happy; a nice safe spot inside for the night.



I'm so glad I didn't need to carry my bike up this beautiful set of stairs. Beautiful, but very steep and narrow!


Ah, time to wander out into the yard to soak in the hot tub for a while. That was certainly a nice end to a day of riding.

Dinner tonight was at Flatbread Company in Portsmouth. Their reason for being? Fabulous pizza! I had the vegetarian special - pizza with fresh basil, tomato, mozzarella, and balsamic vinigrette. Awesome. As a solo diner, I was seated at a table near the cooking activity and just across from the open wood-powered oven. I found it interesting that there was a big log a safe distance away and across from the oven. And periodically diners would go sit on the log and watch the pizza cooking. Most of the log-sitters were kids, but there were some adults too.




Fabulous pizza comes out of this oven - and it was fun to watch this gal throw the pies into the oven and then retrieve them and toss them onto the work table to be sliced and served.


Walking across the bridge to re-enter Maine after dinner had two adventurous components - fighting the wind as it kicked up into a very serious blowing mode, and waiting for the bridge to be restored to a solid surface after opening to let a boat through. And then it was time to do a little more walking, chasing the sunset. Beautiful.

After I got back from dinner and a walk, I decided to sit in one of the sitting areas in the house as opposed to hiding in my room. There is a sitting room upstairs, and there are some comfortable chairs at the end of the dining room. I chose to sit there, and Nat & Lynn (the owners of the inn) came out to talk for a while. Talking with both my hosts and with other guests is one of the reasons I really enjoy staying in B&Bs or inns.



A good end-of-the-day helmet-head photo. Mirrors do a nice job of helping to capture these shots when you're traveling alone!



Nature's beautiful color combinations...

Photos: New Hampshire

The first view of the ocean from the road, on the bridge between Seabrook Beach and Hampton Beach









I could stand and watch the waves for hours, even on days like today when the ocean is relatively quiet. But I really do need to get back on my bike, there are still miles to roll...



I'm so glad I get to tour with Denise! I was going to go swimming, but she convinced me the water is still a bit chilly.



My camera just kept taking more and more pictures of this fascinating mute swan. I felt like the swan was saying "Are you looking at me? Watch out, I'm going to come join you!"



"Wait, I'm going to take one more drink before I get out of the water."



Hmmm... dry land. What's that dry stuff? Do I have to step on it?



Ah, I really can walk on this grass.



Oh, excuse me - I have to take care of this itch!



Yup, that's me - a happy cyclist and photographer, just before heading slightly away from the coast.





Ah, finally - the bridge to Maine. Yes, I'm happy to walk across this bridge.



There are three bridges between Portsmouth and Kittery, only one of which can be traversed by a bicycle. The (Route 1) bridge I am walking across, and the closer of the two bridges in the background (Route 1A) - are lift bridges. The center section between the two high structures lifts up to let boats through. The arched bridge in the back carries I95 traffic, and is quite a bit higher than the two lift bridges.

Photos: Massachusetts

Sights like this slowly unfurling leaf make me believe it's really spring.



A fiddlehead fern, with some stalks in "fiddlehead" state, and some starting to unfurl



I've never seen a fiddlehead fern unfolding before - and I have to admit it took me a few minutes looking at different plants before I realized what this was!



These two horses definitely look like they are having a serious conversation



Sometimes I wonder what makes people post strange signs like this one. (Of course, it did make me stop, look, and photograph...)



Rover poked his head out of his traveling home to watch me take some pictures. He told me he was very happy to be on the road again.



An interesting approach to covering the tree's trunk - what appears to be shedding bark. The type of tree? It's a shagbark hickory.



Calm river on a rather gray day

To the coast

Not too far from home, but what a nice change of pace!

It seems quite novel to leave from home on my bike with no intention of returning home the same day. I've only done this once before, and that was on my cross-country trip back in 2002. I guess part of the reason is that I'm usually thinking of traveling on my bike in terms of a vacation as opposed to just a weekend away. I have a feeling that after this weekend I won't forget that short trips can be fun too.

This wasn't the first time I've ridden most of the roads I rolled over today, although it is certainly the first time I put them all together in one ride. There was one section that was totally new though, and I'm sure I'll be repeating that section again - and I don't just mean on my return trip tomorrow! That was a sweet section on the north side of the Merrimack River that hugged the edge of the riverbank. Unlike many places in Massachusetts along the water, this stretch didn't have any houses on the water side. Nice. I have to admit that I had to stop and ask for directions on this stretch. Because of the propensity of towns in Massachusetts not to place street signs on many corners, I was afraid that I would miss the road leading up to route 110. Actually, it almost looked like I was going to meander back to the south side of the river! I stopped at exactly the right point; it turned out that the road I wanted was just one house away from where I was standing at the time I asked.

I'm a warm weather tourer, and a warm weather commuter. While I do try to ride my bike year-round, my winter rides tend to be relatively short - and only on the weekends so that I can ride in daylight. It's only May, and in reality it is still fairly early in my riding season. I think I've just managed to break all of the rules (recommendations?) about adding mileage slowly. Last weekend was my first ride of 40 miles. I almost repeated that yesterday with 39 miles as the my first (bicycle) commute to work of the season, and today I jumped to 54 miles. Oh, and you know I'm going to have to repeat that again tomorrow just to get home!

My least favorite section of the road along the New Hampshire coast is the town of Hampton Beach. That's probably because it is a busy tourist-type town, with the road through the center of town lined with lots of what I would consider junk businesses, and lots of cars... Today, throw in a traffic jam too. I have no clue what was going on, but traffic was just inching through town. That included me too, since there were cars parked on the side of the road and there was often not enough room for even a bike to slip between the parked and the moving cars. Luckily that very annoying traffic didn't last for too long and I was back to rolling along and enjoying the ocean off to my right. I really can't complain though because except for that stretch through the town area of Hampton Beach and a short stretch on (very busy) route 110 in Massachusetts, the roads were very pleasant. And I think I may be able to miss the section on 110 tomorrow. I just need to remember to check my maps to see if the alternate route I am thinking of actually makes sense.

Past Hampton Beach and into Rye... coastal curves, sideways, and a few rollers too. The beauty of the ocean, quiet today, but there are still waves and birds to watch, people too. True beaches, plus very rocky areas...

I had a short visit with one of the mute swans that I first saw back in January. At that time, I was walking and playing with my new camera when I saw two mute swans among all of the sea gulls. (Yes, you're right - I wouldn't have had a clue about what these birds were without a conversation wtih a stranger, a photographer who had been following these birds.) I wonder why I only saw one today. There were two before... This big beautiful bird was paddling along, fishing and drinking too, on the salt marsh (not the ocean) side of the road. I stopped and pulled my (big) camera out, and just followed that bird as it swam along and then waltzed up onto the shore, walking closer to me - but not that close.

It was sunny early this morning, but by the time I headed out on my bike there were patches of clouds. The temperature was probably in the upper 60s when I left home, and it was noticeably cooler along the coast. And hey - what do you suppose that wet stuff is coming out of the sky? I have to admit that I was pretty lucky from a weather standpoint. The forecast went from a rainy Saturday and an OK Sunday to two nice days. That was when I decided to go ahead with my non-plans and head out on a bike for the weekend. When I looked at the forecast this morning it said there was a 30 percent chance of showers. I decided to believe the 70 percent chance of no showers and headed out anyway. I did get hit with a couple of bouts of sprinkles, but nothing too bad.

The wind was a constant presence, but for the most part, it was pretty reasonable. That is, except for a short stretch right before before I hit the coast, and it came back at the end of my ride too. Oh, and when I was walking back from dinner, the wind was absolutely howling. I was really glad I was walking and not riding at that point!

Ah, it was a good riding day today. Here's hoping that tomorrow is a repeat!