Tuttles restaurant is prominent on the Wells River main street. I found it at 7:30 the next morning, open and ready for breakfast, the best meal of the day. It took me twenty minutes to cover the mile from the hotel, however, due to the the need to stop and take pictures. The Connecticut, which separates Woodsville from Wells River (and NH from VT) was covered with low, fast disappearing mist, creating perfect conditions for those well loved autumn photos with trees obscured by fog.
Getting out of Woodsville was also slow. They have a long narrow covered bridge over a waterfall, very attractive, that led to a General Store claiming to the be oldest in the country. Fodder for the camera. The route then does a big loop through the South of the state, turning North again along the Kancamagus Highway through the White Mountain National Forest. I had forgotten that the Mount Washington hotel sits just West of the mountain. It was a surprise to look over and see the place. This is Bretton Woods, it must be -- I thought. I have never actually visited, and I dont think I ever will. Prefer to think of it
the way it was in 1944. One circles the mountain following the trail to the cog railway and on to Gorham. On the advice of the guidebook, I decided to try the road up the mountain. The sign which I glanced at as I entered the gate said the winds at the top were 40 mph. It was only as I got up around 5,000 feet, following that narrow road with no guardrail looking out across the mountaintops, that I began to think again about the meaning of a 40 mph wind on a bike. Luckily it came at me as I rode southwest towards the summit, and was manageable. Half a mile from the top the pavement disappears and the road gravel -- which I had a lot of training in, but not at that altitude or exposure. All went well, and I reached the summit -- from my previous visits during the 1970s.
Then down to the Gorham motel to talk up the experience with the other bikers and ATV riders at rest in the courtyard.
