2013 NorthEast by Motorcycle Day 6

Rockport, Maine to Watertown, New York.  467.3 miles.

Today's mileage was only 467, but it was a hard 467 due to lower speeds and an inconsiderate amount of small towns.

We woke to an early East Coast sunrise.  We had hoped to see the actual sunrise across the Atlantic (or bay), but the location of the sun was obscured by the trees.  We could probably have walked down to the water to see it, but decided to get ready and head out.

We left before the complimentary breakfast and went east.  Traffic was moderate until Augusta where we went through what probably passes as rush hour for the North Woods.  Once through Augusta, the traffic thinned considerably.

Riding through the inland Maine mountains was picturesque.

The mountains looked like postcards or advertisements for hiking the Appalachian Trail.

We crossed into New Hampshire where the speed limits dropped down to 50 MPH.  For the next few hours traffic was light.  However there were a handful of vehicles that limited the speed to a ridiculously low level.  I'm probably not at tolerant as I should be of slow drivers, but if someone can't keep their average speed above 30MPH on a rural road, park it.  At least get over when the few truck lanes show up to let the three miles of cars roll on past.

After a while in New Hampshire, a life goal was accomplished.  At 10:16, we crossed the Connecticut River and into Vermont.  By crossing the state line, I have ridden through all 49 states accessible by land.  This may seem trivial and I know of people who have done it faster or in more dramatic ways, but I have been working towards this for years with the vacation time I have and am very happy to have succeeded.

We stopped for pictures at the border to mark the occasion then continued on.

Vermont was very pretty with many, many small towns.  We wound our way north and west toward New York and Lake Champlain.  At stop at a restaurant near Lake Champlain for lunch another person overheard our discussing routes and gave advice on good roads and scenery to take around the Lake.  One of the great advantages to road trips are fun geography lessons.  I always knew that Lake Champlain was in New York, but I never realized how big it was or that it straddles the New York/Vermont border.

We crossed into New York within spitting distance of the Canadian border and began to ride south and west.  Much like Vermont, Northern New York had many small tows until around Malone where towns became more spread out and we were able to move a little faster.  The area was silly with dairy farms with lots of black and white cows.
As we continued on US11, we noticed an increase in bugs in the air; for a while there were huge clouds of them that could be seen a few tens of feet above the ground.  I'm not sure what kind of bugs they were but they were much harder and less moist than the "grease bugs" back home (corn borer larvae).

We got near Watertown and stopped to consult my phone on hotels in the area and found the location by the interstate with many hotels.  It was time to stop.
We stayed at the Comfort Inn and dinner was at Ruby Tuesday.

The only question, now that I've completed riding through the 49 states I can access by land, what will I do on vacation?