Mel & Trinity

I arrived in Provincetown on Friday, 31 May around 9.30pm after a 2 hour bridge closure left me, and a host of other people, waiting in McDonalds for the road to reopen.

For the first time I had actually booked a place to stay in advance so I wanted to get there. I liked the name of the guest house, Carpe Diem, which was my high school’s moto – words I never truly understood until four years ago.

It was dark and raining when the bridge reopened so I didn’t get to see much of the journey. The guest house had left my room key attached to the back door in an envelope. I was a little taken aback by the lack of security but it wouldn’t be the first time in the USA. I remember staying with a lady in an AirBnB in Hood River in 2015 who never locked her doors. The South African in me was freaking out! I locked the front door that night.

Given the time and the weather I stayed in and had an early night. That was a great decision as I woke up early and went for a walk on the beach. I was finally getting a feel for Provincetown and it is stunning!

After calls to my loved ones, some exploring of the town and a walk up the Pilgrim Monument, I returned for breakfast and met my hosts. One of the owners, Stephen, is originally from Brighton in the UK but has been in the USA for nearly 30 years. Stephen told me that I should go to Lewes near Brighton for Bonfire night. Apparently there is a festival on Bonfire night which is quite the experience! It is now on my (very big) bucket list.

I had barely seen Provincetown so I decided to stay another night and Stephen gave me a discount on the only available room, which was incredibly sweet. The bonus was that it was Pride that weekend, which I hadn’t appreciated, so I knew there would be a great buzz in the town. There was.

After breakfast I was off to explore. I walked down Commercial Street until I could see water. There I saw Provincetown Causeway – a pathway made of rocks running through Cape Cod Bay linking the town to the horn of Cape Cod where the lighthouses are. I love lighthouses, so I had to go and see them up close.

It was a 2.5 hour round trip walking to Long Point Lighthouse via the Causeway and then the beach. It was a great walk and I had the beach all to myself! There were white shells on the beach the size of my hand. My niece Kiera would love these! We spent hours walking around Surfers Paradise in Queensland, Australia, the last time I was there to visit looking for perfect shells for her. These shells would have blow her mind!

Below are some photos at the lighthouse.

There are more photos of Provincetown on my Facebook Page.

I returned to the guesthouse at 5pm looking for John who I had met at breakfast. He wanted me to take him for a ride on Trinity. Unfortunately, Massachusetts helmet laws are one of the strictest in the country, so that wasn’t going to happen without a spare helmet.

When I arrived at the guesthouse there was a little party. Three of the guests had birthdays that weekend so the guesthouse put on wine, an array of snacks and cake. How amazing! This also allowed me to meet some of the other guests in the house which was lovely.

When everyone headed out for dinner I popped to one of the bars on Commercial Street for a pint of Ale. There I met Melinda and Christine. After about 15 minutes I started talking to Melinda and I told her about my tour with Trinity. She loved what I am doing as she is also a keen traveller.

I mentioned to Melinda that I wished I could take better photos so she started showing me how to use the camera on my iPhone properly. I definitely need a lot more practice but since my lesson I’ve been paying a lot more attention to the photos that I’ve been taking. Hopefully one day it pays off. I’ve always wanted to properly capture the beauty of what I am so privileged to see on my trips. I was therefore very grateful for Melinda’s photography lesson.

Meet Melina and Christine. Christine was serving us and getting in on the conversation.

I was so excited about my photography lesson that I left the bar and forgot to look at the laser light show – the key attraction of the night. I woke up at 4.30am mortified that I had missed it! As it turned out, I got to see it the next day when I met Richard at breakfast and he showed me photos. It was stunning – a huge rainbow. As Richard put it, ‘the gays putting love out into the world’. That made me smile.

I spoke to Richard for a while at breakfast talking about travelling and motorcycles. Richard used to ride a Harley but he lives in New York City and was dealing with traffic all the time so he eventually sold it. I totally got that – traffic is not a pleasure!

Eventually Drunkerella got in on our chat and she was envious of the time that I could take off – she works 6 days a week and seldom leaves Provincetown. Drunkerella jumped up and said, ‘let’s take a photo with your map’. So we did.

Meet Richard and Drunkerella.

The Pride parade was only taking place at 4pm so I decided to hit the road. I absolutely loved Provincetown but I was in the mood for quiet, so I decided to skip Boston and head straight for the mountains.

It was incredibly foggy riding through Boston and into New Hampshire. I stopped off at a grocery store in Hooksett in search of organic bone broth, fruit and vegetables. Race, who I met in the Great Smokey Mountain National Park, introduced me to bone broth in a carton. A month of hotel food was finally getting to me. I have never been so happy to walk down a vegetable isle in my life. Everything looked so yummy!

The store manager finally tracked down the bone broth so I bought a chicken and beef carton, along with some fruit and various salads. I sat in the parking lot next to Trinity and ate my goodies. I probably looked like a bum but I was so happy! I also drank the chicken broth as I did not have room for two cartons on Trinity.

It was 6.30pm so I needed to find somewhere to stay for the night. I rode for about an hour and reached Newbury and stopped at Lake Sunapee. My friends Kinga and Euan have a place in Newbury in the UK and I wanted to send them a photo. It was so pretty watching the sunset over the lake. It also gave me time to book a motel in the neighbouring town of Sunapee.

I got really excited when I arrived in Sunapee. It felt a little quaint Lake Tahoe, which I loved, so I was so excited to see it in the morning in full light. As it turned out the morning was foggy so I didn’t get the photo opportunity that I had hoped for but that did prompt me to keep moving.

I saw a little town called Lyme on the map, which is where my friend Adam grew up in the UK so I wanted to go there. It was a very cute little town.

It was now time for the Kancamangus Highway, which Dave had told me about in Harper’s Ferry. I stopped at a little store to take the obligatory photo next to the sign and sent that to Dave and the gang from Harper’s Ferry.

Below are some of the photos that I took.

A few miles down the road there was an incredible lake to my right so I stopped to have the salad I had bought earlier that day. It was stunning with the fog blowing over the lake. It was cold though! I was very glad to have a few layers of clothes on. I sat enjoying the lake and sending various friends photos, including Jenny, who I met in Harper’s Ferry and would be meeting up with in Portland.

The weather was coming in so I booked into a hotel in Lincoln and decided it would be pizza and beer night. I was so chuffed when the gas station sold Samuel Adams ‘76. I had it for the first time on Jekyll Island and I love it – it’s such an easy drinking beer/ale blend. I also happen to be born in 1976 so I like the ‘76 reference. It was a good year! 😂

I found a sticker at the gas station which I thought would be perfect for Trinity, so with a beer in hand I popped outside to Trinity to put the sticker on my top box and also play around with some photos – I had to put Melinda’s lesson into practice. I clearly got carried away as I realised the next morning that I left my one pannier unlocked. Eeek! Slight panic came over me expecting it to be empty but everything was still there. Phew! That’s this cat’s 4th life gone on this trip!

Feeling rather blessed to be so lucky I skipped off and headed to The Flume which is in the Franconia Notch State Park. It’s a 2 mile trail with spectacular scenery and waterfalls and costs $16 to enter. This is definitely a great trail for everyone to do as it’s a relatively easy walk with good quality gravel paths. I kept thinking my mom would love this.

Below are some photos of the trail.

With even more of a spring in my step now, I jumped back onto Trinity and rode the Kancamangus Highway through the White Mountain National Forest. It was a very pretty ride with it winding road alongside the meandering river to the left.

The forecast was again for rain that evening so I booked myself into a hotel around 4pm. As it turned out the hotel was next to a factory outlet centre. Woohoo – shopping!

I was nervous that the cold weather in New Hampshire was going to continue in Maine so I bought an extra base layer and warm top and a new pair of flops which I desperately needed. Then I walked out of Under Armour and saw the Levi store. I am such a Levi girl so I couldn’t resist! I ended up buying a new pair of shorts and two vests in there too. Now I could throw away my favourite shorts that I’ve been holding onto long after their expiration date. I love those shorts!

The evening was quiet at the hotel. I spent quiet a lot of time on my phone chatting to various people on WhatsApp, including finalising plans with Jenny for the next day. She was hoping to get an earlier flight so I needed to head up Mt Washington pretty early so that I could meet her in Portland by 2pm.

I was on the road by 7am on Tuesday morning. When I arrived at Mt Washington I got the news that they would only be opening the road half way as there had been snow and ice the night before. That’s a shame I thought. I had to wait about 20 minutes before they opened the road, which was enough time for me to check the weather on Mt Washington, which said it would be -3 degrees Celsius. Shit! I very quickly grabbed out some extra layers and put that on in the parking area before I started my assent.

The park only changed us half the price to go up the mountain. That was nice (and fair) I thought. Given that we’d be riding 4 miles and climbing to 4,000 ft I decided to stand on the pegs the whole way. It was a bit of fun, particularly as the speed limit was 25 miles per hour, and I’d have a better view.

It was a fun ride up until I reached 4,000 ft and was hitting a clearing at which point it got really windy very quickly. Hmmmm…I wasn’t liking that so I decided to turn around and went to the closest viewing point where I saw a truck pull in. I was understood why they were only letting people go half way.

I jumped off Trinity and tried to take photos but I kept being blown forward. Man it was cold and this wind was not pleasant. I spoke to the driver of the truck who also commented on the wind. He had a little dog with him but was scared to bring her out in case the wind swept her away up the mountain.

The view was lovely but it was difficult to enjoy it in the strong wind. I stayed for 5 minutes and left. It probably took me a minute or two to turn Trinity around because the wind was catching her from the side and I was nervous I’d lose my footing. I was glad I went up there but also glad I left that ledge. As I started Trinity the temperature gauge was flashing 2.5 degrees Celsius. It slowly crept up on my decent.

On the way down I stopped to talk to an elderly couple who were walking up the hill from their car. They were bird watching. I told them how the conditions changed on the ledge and that they may not want to go up there. They live just outside of Albuquerque, New Mexico but had lived in Alaska years before. We spoke about Alaska for a while as that’s the part of my trip which is completely unplanned at this stage and I need to finalise. They were so sweet!

I also met the truck driver on the way down the mountain when I stopped to play in some snow. He told me that I hadn’t missed much higher up the mountain as there was a guy turning people around not far from where I had seen him. That made me happy as I thought I may have missed something special by turning around earlier. Great, now I was really happy.

About a 30 minute ride from Mt Washington I passed a heath food store and had to stop. I had not had breakfast and was dying for a healthy meal so this was a godsend. I had a veggie juice and a vegan breakfast, which was not usual for me as a meat lover but it hit the spot.

I was now ready to leave New Hampshire and venture into Maine.