Day 2 to Montreal on Hills and Slopes

I woke up this morning at our Finch & Chubb Hotel/Marina on the bottom of Lake Champlain to a lovely day.

View from our room in Whitehall, NY this morning.

I left Whitehall, NY and rode 8 miles to the Vermont border, thinking only of Ben & Jerry's ice-cream (Vermont's premier export item)!

Dion reminded me that the name "Vermont" includes the French word for mountains i.e" mont," and that I should mentally prepare for hills and slopes.  Yeah, whatever!  If I could survive the rain yesterday, I could handle a hill or two, right? Well, they say God only gives you things you can handle.  Yesterday it was the rain, and today it was not one, but 4 separate rain storms, AND numerous mountain slopes and hills.  Like the rain wasn't bad enough. 

Anyway, since I had my brand new rain gear, I persevered, however I hid out in one Dunkin Donuts in Fair Haven, VT, during a torrential downpour.   It's funny that my shadow never passed the threshold of a DD store before this trip, and now every single day, a DD magically appears as my safe haven, literally! Respect to all of the Dunkin Donuts across the nation!  I promise to be a loyal donut-buyer from now on.  During my challenging ride, I still found time to marvel that this is "Vermont" country where Green Mountain coffee reigns, along with farmlands, fresh blueberries and endless bales of hay.

Farmland along Vermont's Route 22A

Fields of lavender and the Green Mountains in distance

I made it to Vergennes, Vermont, to a lovely Bed & Breakfast, Emerson Guest House, where Dion waited outside on the lawn for me, ready and willing to perform search & rescue tactics if need be. The city of Vergennes is named after Comte Vergennes, royalty from France who created a fictional company so that France, via Louis XVI funds, could smuggle 80% of the weapons the colonists needed in order to defeat the British in the Revolutionary War.  The prime king pin on this side of the Atlantic Ocean working with Vergennes in organizing this massive scale weapon smuggling project was none other than Benjamin Franklin.  The lesson here being that sometimes underhanded methods are necessary to achieve worthy goals.  Not sure how this plays out for today's ride, but I'm sure there's a connection! 

Dion and I dined on a delicious dinner at the Black Sheep Bistro in Vergennes, followed by, not one but four desserts, one for each rain storm I survived--2 mini cannolis, a chocolate flourless tart, a coconut chocolate bar and something else I can't name and which the overload of sugar is preventing from total recall.  In any case, it was a great day of riding, of surviving, and of eating every delicious morsel I could get my hands on before bed.  I think I'm using this bike riding excursion as an excuse to over indulge in chocolate.  Dion's final words as I complain that I won't fit into my bike shorts tomorrow is "control your mouth."  I wonder if he only means eating. lol