Day’s distance: 113 miles
Total trip distance so far: 4,060 miles

The day started off in the mid 60’s and reached 80 or so, with the sun out all day. Winds were light and only noticeable this afternoon when I was eating lunch outside.

The motel didn’t supply coffee but the Parkway Diner was just a block away. I got a large coffee and a “grilled” muffin, which was new to me. The waitress asked if I wanted the muffin grilled and I looked at her funny and asked her to explain what that was. She said they slice a muffin in half, slather butter over the center and throw them on the grill until toasted. This particular muffin was a little too sweet but I will have to try this again.

The shop was only about 20 minutes from the motel and I arrived early.

While at the shop I spent time catching up with some work, finishing Day 16’s blog entry, and making reservations for Acadia National Park. I’ll be camping at Blackwoods Campground Thursday night only as the sites were fully booked through the weekend.

With that change of plans,  I will be heading more directly towards Acadia over the next two days than I had initially planned.

The service performed was finished just before 2pm. Rear brake pads were all that was needed outside of the usual level II maintenance. I also looked over the selection of gloves and picked out the BMW branded Airflow summer gloves.

I decided earlier in the morning that I probably should not plan a long day because I knew that the service would take between 4 and 5 hours.

Montpelier was only about 40 minutes away, so naturally I would make it 3+ hours through the country.

The Butler Motorcycle Map for Northern New England was my reference for picking this route. They grade parts of roads as either best, better, or good segments. In this part of the country, there doesn’t seem to be long segments of any one grade and I now understand why.

The same highway can be really sweet for a few miles, then turn into a very rough road. Hwy 17 east of Main Rd was nice, as was the road over Blueberry Mountain and a large part of Hwy 12 south of Northfield.

Soon enough, I was in Montplier looking for dinner.

I stumbled across Bagitos, a small hole in the wall that does Mexican food and bagels. There was a small group of folks who, apparently get together to practice their spanish.

Tuesdays are ‘Taco Tuesdays’ with three tacos for $10. They were pretty good.

The motel wasn’t far away and I holed up there for the night.

Tomorrow it is supposed to rain in the afternoon. I’ll plan a relatively short day to Conway, NH. Thursday I’ll ride from there to the Acadia National Park.