New Hampshire, how do I love thee? (AKA Vacation, Part 3)

New Hampshire, how do I love thee? Let me count thy roads.

Preferably, of course, by riding all of them.

There's something special about the roads out here, a smooth conservation of energy that takes you from place to place in all kinds of directions, with minimal input on the bars or throttle. It twists and turns, rises and falls, but never so fast that you're caught off-guard by it; a quiet sense of getting there by going nowhere in particular.

What strange sort of animal is this?

The road that Deborah's parents live on has a few quirks to it, as well. Namely, it passes back and forth repeatedly between four different towns. The only problem with that is that each town has assigned it's own house numbering system, and they don't necessarily line up. At all. As I was rolling in the last few miles, I kept thinking I was getting closer to my goal (617) but then the numbers would jump from the 400s to the 80s, and then into the 50s, and back to the 400s for a while, then back to the 50s and 60s... I ended up finding the house by remembering the distinctive shape of the tree out front, and that there was a radio antenna just over the next hill!

The League of Sane People Against Interstates (AKA Vacation, Part 2)

I don't remember all the details of day 2 of my travels to New Hampshire, but apparently some part of it — or even most of it — was horrific enough for me to tweet (that means "post to my Twitter account," which one can do from most cell phones) that "I never want to drive on another interstate highway as long as I live." Aside from the stress of having to ride hard among the truckers and their fierce turbulence, the defining moment was a multi-mile traffic jam where four lanes constricted down to one to allow for roadwork.

Now, to people in cars, this is merely an annoyance. To someone on a motorcycle, it's oh, so much more than that. I had inched forward in traffic so many times that my clutch hand was getting cramped. It was a hot summer evening, and was wearing my full gear, sitting on top of a toasting engine, breathing the exhaust of a thousand idling cars. I didn't know whether I was going to pass out, or throw up.

At that point, I justified something that is legal in California: lane splitting. If you can prove what state I was in, I'll pay the fine — it should be legal everywhere, in my opinion. Of course, in doing so, I figured out pretty quickly why it's not: grumpy drivers, particularly the guy that opened his car door in front of me and spat on the ground. I don't think it was a coincidence that he did it in front of me, even though I was going all of 5 miles per hour. But the moving air did do what I needed it to, and I tucked back into the non-moving traffic until I couldn't stand it again. An hour later, at a rest stop, I was an utter wreck, both physically and mentally. Too many people, driving too-big vehicles, in too big a hurry.

By the time Paul and Deborah caught up to me, I was ready to go on (being able to see the Milky Way from where I sat helped — I hadn't thought I would be able to see it from that part of the country, but there it was) but still with little love for the route and road we were taking. At that point, Deborah got out the maps, and plotted me a new route altogether. It was lovely, and I was utterly alone on it.

So, who's with me? The League of Sane People Against Interstates? Is "sane" redundant? Do we need a better acronym? Chime in on the comments.

Get Your Kicks on Route 6

I've pretty much decided on Route 6 for the majority of my solo ride towards New Hampshire. While doing research on which roads I'd like to take, I came across this snippet on Wikipedia:

Since it was pieced together from other routes, US 6 does not serve a major transcontinental corridor, as other highways like U.S. Route 40 do. George R. Stewart, author of U.S. 40: Cross Section of the United States of America, initially considered US 6, but realized that "Route 6 runs uncertainly from nowhere to nowhere, scarcely to be followed from one end to the other, except by some devoted eccentric." In the famous "beat" novel On the Road by Jack Kerouac, protagonist Sal Paradise actually considers hitchhiking on US 6 to Nevada, but is told by a driver that "there's no traffic passes through 6" and that he'd be better off going via Pittsburgh (the Pennsylvania Turnpike). (Emphasis mine.)

If that doesn't describe a great motorcycle road, I don't know what does. I've ridden portions of 6 in both Indiana and Pennsylvania, and I surely now fall into that category of "devoted eccentric."

One Christmas Down, One to Go

Our family seems to have gotten in the habit of having Christmases on multiple days, or on days other than the 25th of December. I've lost track of ho many times I've been flying on Christmas (no lines!) and exchanged presents the next day, instead.

Christmas 1 (Dec. 25th) went over wonderfully this year. The kids were just about bouncing out of their skin to put up their stockings, and calling out, "Is it time to get up yet?" scarcely half an hour after we put them to bed. Once it was time to get up, Fiona bounded up the ladder to our bed and so sweetly invited, "come have Christmas with us!" before crawling over to give me a backrub (both Fiona and I are totally backrub people). It was wonderful way to wake up.

Christmas 2 (Dec. 27th) starts in a few hours, with Deborah's parents and May having just arrived from an all-day drive from New Hampshire. I'm glad they made it: Our street is a wet sheet of ice, and a thick fog is covering most of Indiana and Ohio. They told us about following "Rudolph" — an 18-wheeler with glowing red taillights — nearly all the way across Ohio. All they could see were those red hazy dots amidst the gray. I've done nearly the same thing — I followed a truck at a crawl nearly all the way across Ohio in a blizzard after visiting Deborah up at Houghton in upstate New York one weekend.

Now, off to bed with me. As I told the kids, the sooner you go to sleep, the sooner it will be Christmas again!

By the way, we're back in Indiana now

I never did mention that we flew back here on New Year's day. A few people are still under the impression that we're still in New Hampshire. But: We're back. Now you know.

May didn't come back with us, as originally planned. May's other sister, Sara, volunteered to coach May in her schoolwork, which had come to something of a standstill (standoff?) under our supervision. Last we heard, the schoolwork was going quite well.

Ah, yes, the bear. You were wondering about that, weren't you?

This was one of Fiona's Christmas presents, from her grandmother, I think. We went to New Hampshire with full suitcases, and all the carry-ons we could handle. We had even more coming back — I thought for sure we'd have to leave things behind. But on the last night, I had a bright idea: the bear could ride in the car seats on the plane! To save further space, the bear is also wearing Aiden's bulky snowsuit. Problem solved!

In the air... and on the ground again

All of these are going to fit into our suitcases?

Fiona, fascinated.

Sorry, Aiden, you exceed the maximum size for carry-on. We'll have to do a gate check.

We gave the kids some of their presents once we were in the air, one or two at a time. Since both kids are just nuts about books, it was easy to stretch the enjoyment over both flights.

We made all our connections — barely — but our luggage just couldn't keep up. Fortunately the folks at United had spare car seats for just such an occasion, and our car seats and luggage will catch up with us sometime tomorrow. All the other presents were in our luggage, though, so a few things will have to wait...