I had read much about the VT Puppy Dog Ride and gathered data from the website.Dave met me at my work at about 2:00pm on Thursday the 10th of July. We headed out, down to 101a in Nashua/Amherst and then picked up 122 to 130, to 13 down into MA where we hopped on Route 2 west. Our destination was Greenfield and the Super 8 Motel. We arrived there about 4:30, got checked in and then just hung out a bit until Peggy arrived.
Peggy is from the "Chain Gang" (f650.com), a forum for the F650 BMW. We had never met but we had conversed on the forum and she was close to where we were staying. She had contacted us to meet and have dinner before our departure. She arrived just after 6pm, we kicked tires a bit inthe parking lot before heading in to town for dinner. It was a pleasant evening and great to meet Peggy. She had just done this ride about a month prior. After dinner she headed home, Dave and I gassed up the bikes and headed up to get some sleep.We were up early Friday morning, got our stuff packed up and ready to go. I had a cell phone issue that caused a slight delay but then we got on the road. It was expected to be warm and clear all day (and in fact all weekend). We had both the route sheets and also a GPS file. Later we would switch to Route sheet only)
Once on the trail, we were able to enjoy the scenery and the tranquility of the ride. During the morning ride, we got off route (via GPS) a couple different times. In both cases we discovered the deviation and then used the route sheet to get back on to the main route. From that point, it seemed that the GPS routing had some issues so we reverted to working primarily with the route sheet.
"On The Trail" 
"One of the Covered Bridges" 
"Our Lunch Stop"
"Back on the Trail" 
As we neared the end of the first day, we were pleased with the scenery, the roads and the weather. It was a good day of off road riding. The route had us crossing the Floating Bridge in VT. It was closed earlier this season to traffic as it is actually sinking now so we plotted a detour around it. We did stop to see it before we went to the camp ground. We took a short break, walked around the area and snapped a few photo's before headed around to our campsite at Allis State Park.
The campground was very nice and we went and picked a site out in a field away from the roads. After setting up camp, we ran in to the nearest convenience store and grabbed some food. Picking up some firewood, we returned and had a small fire before turning in.In the morning, we broke camp, headed out for a breakfast sandwich and fuel, then took to the trail again. The weather again looked to be on our side again with clear blue skies with just some white puffy clouds. Temperature was mild and I stayed with my mesh jacket.
The North section, in my opinion was a better ride. We are more into the Green Mountains and the scenery just seemed to be much better. There were many nice vista's as we climbed up out of wooded sections.
Some of the trails were also a bit more technical (re:difficult) and this was challenging to our riding skills. A couple of these are not much more than single tracks through the woods.
Along some of the ridges in the North was a lot of open farm land. You could look out from these clear areas and see for miles. Very breathtaking. The other added plus was the GPS routinhg semmed to be dead on. We made great time during this leg. Granted, some of the GPS issues yesterday were probably my fault, this made the 2nd day ride much smoother.
At one point, we crossed the Bayley Hazen Military Road. This will be the subject of a future ride and today, we crossed it at one section and traveled on it for a few miles.
This is an old road from the Revolution and a good percentage of it is still open today. I plan to do that before the summer is out.
Even with several photo op's and a few scenic stops, we finished up the north Section earlier than planned, ending around 2:15. It was early enough that we decided to abort the 2nd camping night and go ahead and start heading home.A few hours later, we were back home safe and sound. Another successful adventure complete. Yet so many more to do.... now its time to Rest!
Ride Safe!
Pat in NH
