After working on exterior home repairs for a month and a half I’m ready to get out of the heat for a while so I’m going north to Vermont to attend the Northeast Jailbreak for the Chain Gang F650 GS group in West Dover. The get together is from August 5-8 at the Gray Ghost Inn. The inn is owned by a couple and the wife is an F650 rider — they are offering rooms at a great rate to the Chain Gang members. West Dover is on the edge of Green Mountain National Forest so there should be some great riding in the area. I’m looking forward to meeting some other F650 owners.
Since it’s only 170 miles to Quebec I plan to ride north on Hwy 100 from West Dover to do a little sight seeing in the Eastern Townships — I loved Lake Memphremagog last summer and want to ride around it this year. It’s a large lake with about 75% of it in Quebec and the other 25% in Vermont. Magog is on the north shore of Lake Mempremagog — a very cool little city with one of my favorite espresso bars/restaurants Caffuccino. I don’t care what time of day I get to Magog — I’m stopping to eat.
Then I’ll turn south to check out West Virginia, Virginia, North Carolina, and a little of South Carolina once I get out of New England. I was in these same states last year on the Blue Ridge Parkway, but that was so insulated (stunningly beautiful, but pretty well insulated from the rest of the world) I didn’t really get to see the surrounding area except for fuel stops. I plan to ride south more or less parallel to the Parkway. I have a variety of routes mapped and I’m not sure at this point which one I’ll be taking. The plan right now is to spend a couple days in the Asheville/Brevard area and then head southwest toward Dallas and back to the heat.
I hope I’m not being too optimistic, but I’m fairly confident I won’t be seeing any SNOW on this trip. One experience with that was more than enough… But I also hope there are no heat waves up north since I would really like to experience some cooler temperatures for a while.
Mountains, lots of green, cooler temps. That’s what I’m looking for.
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