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We began today with an epic climb up the Kancamagus Highway. The climb is 12 miles long, and is mostly gentle grades no more than 9 percent. But it is inexorable. As luck would have it, my odometer kicked out after a mile and a half, so I didn’t know where I was in the climb. I finally caught up to Carolyn, who had headed out early to get jump on the climb, and she told me that we were at 10.5! From there it was an easy jump to the summit.
I posed for the obligatory photo at the top.
From the summit, we had 20 miles of mostly downhill, ending in the town of Conway, which was a great place for breakfast.
Soon after breakfast, we crossed into our LAST state–Maine!
The pavement was an issue today. At times we had very rough pavement with no shoulder, and on appropriately named Hardscrabble Road we had a section of road that had been removed for repaving.
At about that time Peggy was stung by a bee, and we had an anxious half hour waiting to see if she would have a reaction. Fortunately, since there was no cell service to call the SAG, she recovered and we continued.
Some of the climbs today were very dramatic, like this one,coming out of Sweden.
But where you have hills, you have compensating views. They were spectacular.
Our spirits were not dampened by the sneaky two mile climb that we had at the very end of the day between Bridgton and our hotel, the aptly named Pleasant Mountain Inn.
Here is the view from the back of our hotel.
And here are Jean and Carolyn, feeling right at home in their cozy cabin.
The total climb today was 4,180. Wow! This is fun!
