Now, firstly, before anything more, if you can’t read the writing and only look at the pictures, turn off here. I have a slight technical hitch with the photos at the moment, not this time because I don’t know what I am doing with them, although I still don’t know much about it, but simply because in the way of things as they go at present, I have found that the lead I picked up to connect my mobile, which incorporates an excellent camera, was actually OK on the end that plugs into the phone, but the other end has an ear-plug and not the USB jack which I had intended to bring. This is probably more frustrating to me than to you, because I do not know how to use the music player on my phone and therefore it is just excess rubbish to carry with me until I get home and stuff it in a drawer somewhere in the event than sometime I might learn how it works and want it. I will try to get hold of a replacement, but in the meantime, you will have to be very grown up and rely on my descriptions only. I will take all future pictures on my camera instead.
Travelling down in intermittent drizzle from the Canadian border, just south of Philipsburg, I was firstly being very careful on the new to me roads, and secondly feeling miserable about my initial two day delay, the weather being almost as bad as that which I had left, and the fact that the Satnav had packed up. I had bought it especially for this trip and had it wired in by Eddie Wright’s, and it is critical to finding my routes on the back roads, if I don’t want to be stopping and looking at the road atlas every 15 minutes. And then the cruise control! How can I comfortably go sailing down the great highways of the mid and south west with my hand on the throttle the whole time? I got cramp in my thumb riding down to Gatwick, and that was only 250 miles. However, despite the bits of rain, I made steady progress south and passed down through Montpelier on the 89, before shedding off on a back road I had planned through Barre ( pronounced Barry) and up through hills, almost parallel with the Interstate Highway, but much windier and prettier through the hill farmland and forests. However, in the delay of two days, and the other concerns and the weather, I realised about 40 miles further on that I had missed my scheduled first stop, the Ben and Jerry’s Ice Cream factory at Waterbury! It was not long however before I realised that, firstly it was Sunday, and even if they weren’t closed for visits on Sundays, it was about 5 o’clock when I passed the turn, so I would almost certainly have had a wasted journey. Anyway, I reassured myself, that today was not a day for gorging on ice cream. I had other worries as I moved further into the hills. This had been a rather silly route for today in retrospect, but I felt so cheated by the loss of leisure I had to do this first part of the trip that I was determined to pack it as I had planned it. We were higher up than the main Highway and surrounded by the “green mountains”, the forests. This is very beautiful verdant landscape, the forests of mixed conifers and deciduous trees punctuated by clearings and small farmsteads. Higher you go up, the nearer the clouds, so the clouds now were hanging like thick cobwebs, enveloping the trees and blending into the foliage like a fine watercolour wash. The roads were twisty and narrow and slippery, and the fields on each side had a thin vale of steamy mist across them. It was cold, and I was glad to have kept all my leathers on as I progressed the forty miles or so south west towards Lebanon and the New Hampshire border. But I had also forgotten how far north I was, it was dark by 9 o’clock in Montreal and it would not be much different here. Back at home, a fortnight past our longest day, it was getting dusk about 10.15. Here it was dusk at 8.30. I realised I could not go on much further and pulled of the road to a village called Andover where I had followed signs to a motel. The Lamplighter Inn was a welcome sight, but in other respects a disappointment. This would be my third night in a hotel, and the costs were already building up. I had intended to camp most of the time, but I justified a third night on account of the bad weather and my being so tired.
After a good nights rest, I took the road through White River Junction and Lebanon through to Concord New Hampshire where I went to the Heritage Harley Davidson dealer about noon to see if they would fix my cruise control and the Satnav for me. They were very welcoming and helpful, and slotted me in straight away.
Pat and Michael in the Service reception were very hospitable in particular and I must say a big thank you to them for helping to make my stay at least comfortable and friendly. I was slightly alarmed however to see my bike through the service doors with all the fairing and saddle off and after wandering around their large showroom for 4 hours was getting a bit disturbed. The cruise control had been the principal subject of the problem I took to Eddie Wrights’ at Leeds. I bought another pair of sunglasses as the ones I had got in Darlington at Heine Gericke only four weeks ago had lost the small screw that holds in the lens, and a lens on one side was not going to be any use. Shall have words when I get back! They also had a windscreen pouch carrier into which sunglasses and mobile phone fit well so, I had one of these fitted as they replaced the fairing. All was well with the cruise control, but they could not discover the problem with the Satnav at all. Live to the holder, and then dead. By this time it was 5.30. It had rained all afternoon and I felt I could not cope with moving on that night. They recommended the local Comfort Inn which I went to and got a discount for being a member of the Harley Owners’ Group. 
The bed was the most enormous I have ever seen, fully 8 feet wide, with four pillows across the top. It would have been a swinger's dream, but sadly no swinging tonight!I left Heritage Harley and went up the road to a large electrical outlet, Circuit City and asked there about the Satnav. They too were brilliant and took me in to the service bay immediately, despite the time. It was soon sorted out. The small pins inside the holder had been bent when inserting the plug, so they did not make contact. Wonderful! I had the Satnav back. On the way to the Comfort Inn, I tried the cruise control again. This time it worked ….but not for long! It clicked off again. After some wiggling, it came on only above 45 miles an hour and then when I braked, it kept coming back on again spontaneously. This was dangerous. I headed straight back to Heritage, actually rather angry, but trying to keep cool. Angry with Eddie Wrights’ and angry with Heritage who had tried it out and road tested it and said it was now fine. They were closed of course, so I had to sleep on it.
It then started to pour with rain again, and from my room, the rain poured off the roof like a waterfall, ten times too severe for the gutters to manage. I soon turned in fro an early night after trying to watch some news on the television, between 10 minute advert breaks and bits of local hot gossip, I gave up. American television seems to be absolute rubbish. I couldn't find any one of the multiple channels that actually had a programme which one could get into and watch through. It was all cartoons, chat shows, sales channels or scrappy non informative news channels, broken up with massive advertising breaks. Breakfast at the Comfort Inn was a self serve buffet. This would be something I would get to see again I felt sure. Unbelievable what they have for breakfast! Apart from the orange juice, a choice of pre-sugared cereals or the healthy option of a fruit and fibre mix, and coffee of course, there were masses of bagels of differing types, and a “do it yourself” waffle iron, always on, to make waffles the size of frying pans and covered in butter and maple flavoured syrup. In addition there were huge cakes, like the ones we know in the U.K. as muffins, and a hot container with all sorts of fried stuff. People all around were really packing it away. Kids were eating a couple of the waffles and then cakes. Parents with plates full of Bagels followed them up with fried potato cakes and bacon and eggs. There must have been 1800 calories in every breakfast! I heard my daughter in my head and had the sensible option ( this time!)Nine o’clock saw me in drizzle back at Heritage. I told them what had happened and apologised. Why, I don’t know. It’s probably the English way! Anyway, they took it back in again, and started to look at it. I thought that it must be a small problem because it had so nearly worked again this time. But, alas, no. After an hour, when I could not see the bike through the service window, Pat came to tell me that they thought it was the electronic computer module that had burned out because the accelerator cable was sticking badly. I resisted the temptation to ask why they had not sensed that yesterday, but even more felt a gentle seething inside that the cable had not been checked or replaced when it was in Leeds, as I had specifically asked that all cables and hoses should be checked. It made me wonder too whether any of the others had been looked at at all. Pat asked me whether they should replace these two items. I asked how much it would be. “About $500” was the reply. I won’t write my immediate thoughts. I said to go ahead as I knew that I couldn’t do the next 14000 miles without it easily. My right hand would get paralysed! After five hours at any Harley dealership, even a big one, like Heritage, one can get bored with wandering round. I slept in a chair for bit and wandered over to a fast food place where I had a vegetarian wrap for lunch. I wandered back to Heritage while it poured with rain and thundered. At the worst, I argued with myself, it was somewhere dry to stay while this weather front passed over. In the early afternoon, still waiting for the imminent discharge of my patient from special care, the sun came out and it was hot, 90 degrees for several hours, and the rain started to dry up. At about 2.00 Michael told me that now the only thing wrong was that it needed a new switch on the handle bar. “Do it!”
At 3.30, after a day and a half there, I finally left and headed out to the Shaker village at Canterbury. The Cruise control worked, but was a bit odd, in that it cut in but then dropped off about 5 to 10 miles an hour of speed. Too late now to turn back, I arrived at Canterbury.
The Shakers are now almost non existent. There were several communities of them in the 1800’s. Originally a branch of Quakers, they were a mixed sex group of celibate holy people living and praying through their
community life and work. At one time, in Canterbury there were over 3,000 people living in the area, but the last one died in 1995, and the village now stands empty and deserted, preserved as it was for the last 150 years. Somewhere, not too far away, there are apparently 3 left, and a new novitiate has recently joined them, so, as the guide put it, they may be the fastest growing Christian sect as they have grown by 25% in the last year! They were highly skilled and because their work was all dedicated to the glory of God, everything they did had to be as near perfection as they could make it. Their woodworking was renowned of course, simple in style but perfect in finish, but so too was their farming and their management of the community. The “brothers” and sisters” lived in separate building and the elders amongst them were their leaders. They had community living in every sense, 
and ate together and had communal laundry and cook-house. Several things they invented and patented, including the world’s first washing machine, a massive agitating wooden machine which rolled backwards and forwards on rollers wound by a hand wheel and kept in motion by a flywheel. I visited their laundry, 
bakehouse, infirmary and schoolhouse. They had no children of their own, being celibate, but took in orphans and had many living with either the brothers or sisters. They were well educated but also had their chores to do in the community, one of which was to take logs to all the fireplaces in the village. The shakers were entirely self sufficient. They actually made a lot of money communally, and this supported the whole commune, and was also sufficient to do much very quiet and anonymous good works in the local community. They would never lay claim to their gifts when donated, just silently providing when it seemed to the elders that it was needed. It would have been very hard life, I feel, a life of constant self denial and service to each other and to the outside world. Almost, like a very low church monastic existence. I enjoyed the visit, and was pleased to be now on the way properly. The weather had been good and the evening was clear by the time I left at 5.30. I resolved to camp at last. I set off towards BostonI was not far down the road, when it started to get dark. I had not seen any signs for camp sites anywhere. The small townships were well ordered and tidy, but no sign at all of anywhere suitable to camp. The main roads went straight through with the houses all on their small plots dotted down the sides of the roads. There were no lay byes, no side lanes, only fields or woods or peoples gardens, and nowhere to pull up at the side of the road. By 9.00 it was dark and I was getting a bit desperate. Anywhere would do now, even a motel if absolutely essential, but no motels either. Finally I passed through a small township oddly named London. I pulled into a “Park and Ride” area, though where one rode to from here I don’t have any idea. Adjacent to it was a large green plot on which was a Lutheran church. Hospitality is a feature of the church, I thought. I felt sure nobody would really object if I slept behind the church. I parked up on the car park and waited for the dark to fall totally, a little uncertain, and a little worried that, were I to be spotted, I may be moved on, and I was too tired to move on. I made a sandwich and ate that with some fresh fruit and water while I waited. All fine and quiet, I got my roll mat out and put on my leathers. It was a warm night now and dry here, so I laid down behind the church and went to sleep. I slept a full solid 7 hours and got mozzie bitten through my jeans all over my bottom and crotch! Bastards! They must have had proboscii a full quarter inch long to get through my denims!
At 6.30 on Wednesday morning,the sun was coming up and it looked like being a lovely day, at last. I met the caretaker at the church and apologised for having slept there. He was rather astonished that anybody would have done so, but fine about it and friendly, asking where I was off too. He wished me well on my trip and I left for Boston.
I arrived in Boston at half eleven on a glorious and hot morning. Having spent a good hour trying to find a safe place to park, I finally found an underground car park in the south centre area at Columbus and Arlington. They had a special niche there for motorcycles and it cost just £4 for the day. Perfect start to a perfect day!
Incidentally, the cruise control went on the blink as I entered Boston, some 150 miles now away from Concord. Now it won’t go on again when the engine is warm!
Best wishes,
Doc
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