Hancocks in New Hampshire

J

Hello from the Hancock rest day!

After the craziness of the last few days, the day off has been fantastic. First let me give you a quick summary of yesterday:

1. 2 mile climb, fairly difficult/thigh burning

2. On our way down the hill stop at a local grocery and ate AMAZING muffins

3. Continued upsy downsy for a few more hours.

4. Climbed one more hill to a town where we ate lunch inside of a gas station while it rained outside. (We happened to time that one perfectly)

Joelle churning up the mountain. Appalachian Trail, NH

5. The rain stopped, our food had been digested, so we began our daunting climb that would take the rest of the day to go up and down.

6. We climbed. We coasted down a little bit. We climbed (very gradually). We coasted down even more. We kept coasting so much I thought we were on our way down. I was wrong. We spent hours working on a very gradual but steady climb which ended up driving me crazy. I was so frustrated that I couldn’t go any faster, and it felt like I was pedaling eternally uphill.

7. We stopped to admire the Appalachian Trail and to eat chocolate pudding. (and to let me settle down from being so frustrated with the climb)

8. We realized we were actually at the top and now began the descent.

9. Steep Coasting!

This question raises a lot of questions. 1. Where does the road go? That 12% grade makes thing difficult to see. 2. Do bikes have to abide by the speed limit? Because, if so, Joelle deserves a speeding ticket. Appalachian Trail, NH

10. Eventually after some more up-downs, we got to our hotel.

This is the best Econolodge I’ve ever been to. (The free room upgrade to get a Jacuzzi room didn’t hurt. ;)

We ate popcorn, watched HGTV, and made a FANTASTIC dinner out of this freezer aisle chicken parm combined with plain cooked ramen, and microwavable vegetables. It was amazing.

Today we reveled in not biking.  We ate like banchees at our hotel breakfast, Micah got some work done, and we even walked 2 miles to go to lunch! French fries are my weakness right now, and this place had great fries. Anyways, then it started to rain, so we popped in and out of tourist shops on our way back to our hotel. It was a long walk, but it felt great to WALK somewhere.

Now I have to think about biking again tomorrow. Tomorrow’s the biggest climb of the trip, and after how my brain handled yesterday’s climb, I’m interested in seeing how tomorrow goes. Micah’s already been working on our lodging for the next few days, and guess what. TOMORROW WE’LL SLEEP IN MAINE!! Wow. This is crazy.

We walked around an antique shop today and looking at this old rusty globe put in perspective how far we've gone these past couple of weeks. Lincoln, NH

Thanks for all the support everyone, we love seeing your questions and comments online! Only a couple hundred miles to go!

Yesterday’s Stats:

Left: Sharon, VT, 9:00 am
Sleeping in: a hotel in Lincoln NH, arrived 7:00 pm
Total mileage: 62.8 miles
High Speed: 41.7 mph
Avg. Speed: 9.4 mph
Overall weather conditions: warm, cloudy
Elevation Gain: 3808 ft
Elevation Loss: 4,009 ft
Total Trip mileage: 1,275.4 miles