Running Parallel at 45 Degrees to the Equator - Gettin There

As indicated in the last post, MeAsWe and I headed to Vermont to reap some Treasure Hunt points and to enjoy the first really good weather of the riding season. Friday was just as promised, in the 80's and 90's all day. We started out of Uxbridge around 8am with hopes of hitting Wilkins HD before closing to capture the HD Stamp for the Ride New England Tour. Based on the GPS we would make Wilkins in Barre well before it's closing time of 3pm.

I will never understand if you are a motorcycle dealer, how you close during prime selling season early on Saturday and not open on Sunday. After all we have become a nation of work work work, and the only time we have allowed ourselves anytime to do things is the weekends. Anyway, I digress.

Targets for the weekend are the 45th parallel markers in Vermont and New Hampshire, a special place that a concert took place, Lake Champlain for the Northwest Corner of the Four Corner Bonus, Arod Yrod Lrod place and the various tanks, cannons, truss bridges, soldiers and of course any TANKS we may come across. MeAsWe is armed with the Nikon locked and loaded, in her seat, like a tail gunner in a B29.

We will also use this run as practise on how we will equip ourselves for the 17 day journey that starts May 9th. (any thing to justify a ride works). So our strategy is in place, now for the tactical execution of the strategy.

We stopped many times during this 3 day trek, captured a ton of points, rode in the rain, tested the effectiveness of our mesh outfits, tested the new Frog Toggs and got a glimpse of the country side in VT and NH before the trees could hide many of its jewels behind the cover of green.

Some highlights were capturing a real horse and carriage in action versus the cutouts that everyone else is offering up for the treasure hunt.

A working water wheel





Some animals of the region.

A place to have a piece of pie at. We didn't we just got the shot.

I rely on the trusty ole GPS and most of the time it is spot on, but I am convinced that the folks in Kansas (Garmin), like to fuck with you every now and then. We are riding along to make it to Wilkins HD, all indications is that we have plenty of time. We are diligently following that British voice making the rights and left. We are directed to this road which turns to dirt. Now this is not uncommon in Vermont and many of these dirt roads are far better than the roads we have in MA, but as you guess not this time. This road wasn't all that bad, except in spots the spring water had found it's way to the surface of the road, which turns the dirt and stone dust like substance into slime. Now slime has a reason it is called because it is slimy. A little slip here, a little slide there, front tire bogs down and then the rear tire kicks a bit, so on and so forth. Not bad but enough to make you tighten that spot on the rear of your body. Of course we are going up hill, which means we have to go down hill, making all the slime a little more sensitive. GPS yells out make a Left on blah blah. I take one look at this road and it looks Hannibal used this road to cross over the Pyrenees in Spain. There is no way I am gonna take this road. Choice turn around or go forward and hopefully the GPS finally finds another way. After 45 minutes on this sludge and slime we finally find ourselves back on the tarmac. Before we started on this little side venture, we had plenty of time to make it Wilkins, now it required throttling up and putting some miles on very quickly. We made it to Wilkins with about 15 minutes to spare.

With Wilkins done there was one place that we had to get, The Vermont Tag. Of course there is always diversions along the way. I just don't think you see the same things on the road in a cage as you do on a bike. Perhaps if you have a convertible, it might replace, but your every day car, I don't believe so. I don't know what this is but I assume the mail goes someplace .




There is nothing special about the Vermont Tag by itself. Someone took a picture from their bike, you have to go to it, take a picture and you get to decide where to send everybody else. Simple for most, except for us. If we get the Vermont tag, we will own 3 tags. If you own a pair of tags you get 5000 points. Well three tags has 3 combinations of pairs, making 15,000 points. Quite a few points for a single location and we are just minutes from it. Pull out the war book. Dang I forgot to write the address down. I have a vague recollection of 293, maybe Main St and it was some insurance company headquarters in Montpelier. A quick call to MeAsWe's son, let him google it and we are on our way. Well it was not quite the bada boom hit, but we eventually got it. Anyways with 3 Tags and the fourth being only one state away, would make 6 combos of 2's or 30,000 points and Maine is only right around the corner and we have 2 days left.

We wrap up the day with dinner and a sunset. What a great day it was