Laconia Trip Report

[Guest BluesLover]

For anyone who might be interested, here is the report on a trip I just completed down to Weir's Beach with a bunch of friends. WARNING: the report is long, so if you are just interested in the pictures, go right to the bottom and click on the link, but WARNING #2: there ARE a lot of pictures ... and WARNING #3, about halfway through the pictures, there are a couple of "R" rated pics.

 

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We left St. Thomas on Wednesday evening, and met up with Brian, Sharon and Derek at the Husky on Hwy 74 – saw Don and Pat Affleck leaving the station just as we were pulling in, likely headed to a chilly ice cream ride!

 

The 401 was the route of choice to meet up with John at the Trafalgar Road Tim’s – with a slight detour onto Campbellville Road to avoid the long stretch of scarred tarmac on the 401 between Hwy 6 South and Hwy 25.

 

After fueling up, we headed onto the 407 for the trip across the top of Toronto. Arrived at the hotel in Whitby at about 9:30 pm.

 

We got an early start on Thursday after a nice breakfast at the Sunset Grill, and dropped onto Hwy around Port Hope. At Brighton, we headed towards the Loyalist Parkway and rode that all the way to the Glenora Ferry. Along the way, we detoured slightly to get up to Lake on The Mountain. After crossing on the ferry, we strayed on Hwy 33 until we arrived near Kingston, which was a good place to stop for lunch.

 

After lunch, we headed to the 401 for a bit and then dropped back down onto the 1000 Islands Parkway. It is another nice scenic track, right along the lake shore, and some beautiful homes along the way. At Brockville, we headed back onto the 401. We had to stop and put on the rain gear around Prescott, and it did rain for about 30 – 45 minutes until we got to Cornwall.

 

I thought that maybe crossing the river at Valleyfield would keep us away from the traffic of downtown Montreal … but I forgot about all the bridge repairs in the area, so once we hit the bridge, we hit one heck of a traffic jam! We wound up taking the “back roads” – Hwy 132 and 138 into our destination for the night – the Comfort Inn in Brossard. We wound up arriving there around 5:30.

 

After a quick breakfast at the hotel on Friday, we met up with a large group from Montreal. We were presented with souvenir T-shirts for the event by the organizer, Daniel. Daniel and the rest of the Quebecois crew then led us on Hwy 10 out to Eastman, PQ to meet up with the last of the crew at Bernard and Mimi’s. After a pit stop, and a chance to do some repairs to one of the Harley Sportsters, the whole crew – 18 bikes and 22 people – headed out through Magog and into Vermont. Because the skies had begun to turn, we wound up putting on our rain gear, but as it turned out, it really wasn’t needed. Although Provincial Route 141 is a quite a scenic ride, the road itself is not in really good repair. There are lots of potholes, and lots of uneven pavement. But, after awhile, you get used to it, relax on the handlebars and try to enjoy the scenery.

 

We crossed into Vermont at Stanhope, VT – it is a very different kind of border crossing. The guards are actually quite friendly, and they took the whole group more or less through all at once. From there, we made our way along some nice, gentle twisties and dips into Colebrook, NH. That was the scheduled fueling and lunch stop. By that time, the skies had totally cleared up and so off came the rain gear.

 

About 130 km later, we made it into North Conway, NH. The crew was split into a couple of the different hotels, but we all got together to trade some stories in “franglais” and introduce one another and then went for dinner at a steak house (called 99) for dinner.

 

The hotel we stayed at was teaming with bikes and bikers, and let’s just say that the majority of them were in a “festive” mood!

 

The next morning (Saturday), Brian noticed that the headlamp on Sharon’s VStar was “sagging”. Once we took it apart, we noted that one of the support brackets was actually broken, so thanks to some ingenuity from Derek, a “bucksheet” repair was done using – no, not duct tape – but tie wraps. However, because of the repair work, we missed the departure time that the rest of the crew had set. No troubles, with Gidget in hand, she programmed us a nice scenic route to get us into Weir’s Beach. As it turned out, we were probably only 5-10 minutes behind the crew from Quebec, We met up with the Quebec crew around 11 am and had the group shots taken. Since they are frequent visitors to the event, and it was the first time for most of the Ontario crew, they left Weir’s Beach ahead of us and went on into Laconia itself to pick up their Harley pins. The Ontario crew decided to linger a bit longer at Weir’s Beach to check out the sites and the vendors. We bought the customary T-shirts, patches and pins, of course!

 

We headed out just shortly after noon, and decided to take the lake route (Daniel Webster Hwy – 11B) out towards the coast. The lake route was a beautiful drive, although it did mean that to get to it, we needed to go back through the mess (i.e. huge traffic) at the entrance to Weir’s Beach. After a lunch stop, we headed back onto Hwy 11 and 16 into Hampton Beach, arriving at our motel (the Main Sail Motel & Cottages) at about 3:30 pm (about 45 minutes ahead of the crew from Quebec).

 

We got there early enough to do some sigh seeing along the boardwalk and for the ladies to check out some of the shops. Dinner was at the Sea Ketch restaurant, overlooking the beach. Afterwards, we went down to the water, and everyone dipped their toes in the Atlantic!

 

The beach was having a Sandcastle building contest and the entries were all so good, I don’t know how the judges made the final decision. At 9:30 there was a fireworks display to rival any other that I’ve seen or heard (I think they were celebrating the arrival of the canuck bikers … or was it more like a celebration of their imminent departure??!!).

 

We left Hampton Beach at 7:30 on Sunday morning and wound our way east along NH101, 107, 111 and 101 – all of them beautiful roads with lots of gentle twists and dips, and all with lots of great scenery along the way. Along the way, the speedo cable on Sharon’s bike came loose – a quick repair job (it just needed to be reconnected) and we were back on the road. We’re blaming the Yamaha problems that Sharon encountered on the rough roads in Quebec. At Keene, NH, after a pit stop, we picked up VT9 – another beautiful road that crosses the state of Vermont from east to west. From there, we crossed into NY state and picked up NY7, which brought us to the “home of Uncle Sam”, Troy, NY.

 

Lunch was at a village by the name of Duanesburg, along US20 – another long, mostly 2 lane, mostly scenic track. At some points, it becomes 4 lanes, which gives the “speed demons” like John a chance to open her up. For many a mile, we met no other traffic on the road, and every once in a while we came upon yet another quaint little town (e.g. Morrisville, Cazenovia, Skaneateles. The final destination – at about 4 pm – was the town of Auburn, NY. The Days Inn was where we stayed … along with the Class A affiliate of the Cleveland Indians baseball team. We wound up having dinner in a little pub just down from the hotel, and after trying some Blue Moon beer and some local product Ithaca Apple-something, the Portuguese guy hoisted a pint of Guinness with two brits that were along on the trip. The other good news was that the rain held off for the entire day, even though they had been calling for some nasty weather. We weren’t back in the hotels for more than 15 minutes after dinner, than the skies opened up and the rain, thunder and lightning started.

 

Monday morning looked as if it was going to be a nasty day. We decided to leave Auburn at 7 am, and make our last leg of the trip. As soon as we left town, the dark skies disappeared and we had great sunshine all the way. The plan was to stay on US 20, and so we did. After having breakfast in Geneva, we continued along 20 all the way into Depew, NY and then made it into Buffalo and across the Peace Bridge at about 11 am. At that time, we said goodbye to John, who headed home to Burlington, no doubt in 5th gear all the way, and just smiling at the thought of riding the 4 lane tarmac once again!

 

The rest of us headed out on Hwy 3 (with a couple of detours – the Forks Rd north of Pt Colborne and CR17 from Dunville to Cayuga). After lunch in Pt Colborne, we could see that the skies to the west were starting to get a bit darker. As we gassed up in Cayuga, some put on their rain gear. As we got into Courtland, we started to see lighting to the west, so we decided to stop in Tillsonburg and let it pass over us – except for Derek, who obviously doesn’t think that his Honda attracts lightning (or maybe he thinks that his pipes are so loud that it drown out the thunder and scare the lightning away). In any case, after an hour’s wait, we decided that the storm had passed by and it was ok to head home. Vicki and I and the RoadSofa hightailed it on Hwy 3 and by the time we hit the Eden Line, we were back into sunshine. Brian and Sharon headed north and did get a bit of rain along the way, but they too made it home safe.

 

So … in total, a little over 2,400 kms were travelled. A few beers were hoisted. There were smiles and stories all around. There were a bunch of neat roads to travel, there was a lot of great scenery along the way. All in all, I’d have to say … it was yet another great adVenture!

 

A great thanks to Brian, Sharon, Derek and John for the camaraderie and fun throughout the trip and for putting up with my – as always – excessive (obsessive?) planning. And an even greater thanks to my beautiful Vicki – what a great way to spend our 27th wedding anniversary!

Pictures – as always, there are quite a few – can be found at:

 

http://s22.photobucket.com/albums/b320/BluesLover55/2008%20trips/Laconia/

 

Cheers,

[mother]

great pics, glad you enjoyed and congrats on 27 years.

[Guest BluesLover]

great pics, glad you enjoyed and congrats on 27 years.

Thanks Scott! Hey, are we going to see you and "Oh Sherry" sometime soon? You heading to Kitchener for the International Rally?

 

Cheers,