Day 1 - 24 April (Boston, MA to Booth Bay Harbor, ME)

A good family breakfast is followed by the loading of the cases onto the bike. Mrs & Mr Adventure gear up and are all set to hit the road. Since I have the Garmin Zumo 660 GPS, it’s a straight fit into the unique GPS slot that BMW has made specifically for this zumo model on the GTL- Great feature (so no additional wastage of time fitting the GPS brackets, mounts, routing wires, connecting to power outlet etc). With the bike key turned on the GPS also lights up to life. I disable Highways & toll roads feature on the GPS as we wanted to stay as much on backroads. Like the start of every past trip, inspite of the best intensions we have a fashionably late start at 11:00am.

The easy way of mounting the GPS on the K1600GTL

A family pic before departure

We bid goodbye to our family, kick the sidestand up, thumb the starter and off we go making our way out of the tight streets of Malden towards Route 1 and then onto 1A that runs along the seashore with the Atlantic Ocean on our right.

With sparse traffic, we pass thru the towns of Lynn, Beverly, South Hamilton, Ipswich, Rowley & Newbury where 1A merges back to Route 1 crossing the Newbury port and briefly passing thru the state of New Hampshire and heading thru Seabrook, Hampton and Rye. By now we are hungry and decide to stop for lunch at Heberts. Gulped down the delicious New England Clam Chowder and a Club sandwich with sodas…
 

Meanwhile, my lady was having problems with her fingers going numb taking pics without the gloves in the cold weather. Infact we have still not been able to find a tight fitting cold weather gloves which are not bulky so she can click pics on the move rather than the present painful practice of removing her gloves each time to click- Surely not an easy & pleasant task in temperatures close to freezing point. Anyways, being April all the winter gloves have gone back to their respective warehouses so the search proved futile at the nearby Walmart. We continue on Rt 1 to Portsmouth and saying goodbye to the state of New Hampshire, we enter the state of Maine passing thru Kittery, Ogunquit and stop for coffee at the nearby Dunkins.

Everytime we learn a thing or two on the first day of riding in a foreign land- Already with a late start, here on the back roads of the North East with really low speed limits along the passing towns, lots of school zones, traffic junctions, roadwork etc, my initial calculation of time-distance has gone haywire. Added to that the biting cold in my lieutenant’s fingers is not making things any better for her, besides it will soon be dark (I dread hitting deer or moose in the dark!) and we don’t have a reserved place to sleep for the night….so after crossing the town of Moody I decide we need an alternative plan and ask Mr GPS to put me onto the nearest Interstate and he takes me left on 9B and puts us into the I-95 North. Suddenly I realize that the GTL which has beautifully handled all the backroads & tight twisty bits with so much of ease is now thanking me for having put him where he belongs. The beast has just woken up and to test its prowess, I tell my wife on the intercom, I am going to briefly lift your spirits so hold tight…..as I instantly crack open the throttle, I can hear the fierce rumble of 6 cylinders between my leg that catapults the bike to 75mph in few seconds. Wow…that was something….and at 75mph, the needle has covered only about 40% of the speedo dial!!!! The GTL is a seriously-fast-luxo-super-sport-tourer(full stop).

Getting back to the ride, I set the cruise control at 72mph (they allow 10mph over the speed limit of 65mph) and we are making up time and soon bypass Portland and take exit 52 east and merge onto state highway 295 before Falmouth and continue thru Yarmouth, Freeport and exit at Brunswick heading past Bath, Woolwich and upon arriving at Wiscasset turn right onto Rt 27 in a south direction.

My B-I-L lent me his EZ-Pass so my lieutenant had to hold it up each time we passed a toll gate. Multi-tasking- Wife holding pass in left hand and clicking pic on the right & talking on the intercom!!

The yellow light means the EZ-Pass is being used by someone else!!

Those ‘innocent’ cars are the cops waiting for their prey…..!!!

Railroad crossing

A small drinks break at a gas station

Its already dark now and getting really cold. The road with its small twists & turns is enjoyable to ride but both of us are desperate to reach our destination and I dread the picture of a deer suddenly jumping onto our path in the dark. Anyways, here comes handy another wonderful feature on the GTL- the adaptive zenon headlight starts it wonderful movement towards the left & right depending which side I angle the bike…its hard to explain but you can basically see into the turn well before the bike is actually positioned fully in that direction. After a long winding & cold ride, we finally arrive at Boothbay Harbor- hungry, frozen and tired. As its already 9 pm, the small town has closed its shutters and more or less gone to sleep. We ride a bit on the now deserted streets and find the Tug Boat Inn by the harbor, where we go & do some bargaining and get a nice price and settle for the night. I immediately unload the cases and head into town to try my luck at finding food. Luckily a Vietnamese restaurant is almost closed, but I manage to slip my foot in and order some fried rice & noodles. I forgot this is America where the servings are BIG and probably seeing my desperate face & being the last customer of the day the lady took pity & stuffed a lot of food into the takeaway plate (which basically would have sufficed for 4 well eating adults!).

Back in the room seeing the quantity of food my wife’s eyes popped out asking “what on earth is………..-I cut her short & told her its a very long story so lets just eat now….! She makes some nice Indian chai to warm us up which we sip together and putting our gadgets to charge and hit the bed flat. Gooodnight!

Distance travelled 186 miles