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Me and The Eck got married a couple of weeks ago. The best pictures are on her brother's personal web page, here. For a honeymoon, we rode our bikes home from Quebec City. I just uploaded the best of these pix to Flickr, here. Reader's Digest version of the honeymoon: Day 1: Immediately after the reception, we went to the airport and picked up a sweet Buick Lucerne as a one-way rental to Quebec City. I must say the Lucerne wasn't bad at all (well, for a car made since 1984). My only complaints: its engine was missing 2 cylinders, and the transmission was connected to the wrong pair of wheels. We ended the day at some chain motel by the highway in South Portland. Day 2: Drove to Quebec via Skowhegan and St-Georges. Reassembled our bikes outside the car rental place, and rode up the cliff to our hotel. Days 2,3,4: Checked out a bunch of museums, and walked around a bunch. Did romantic-type things, like going to fancy restaurants and holding hands and stuff. Recommendation: Restaurant Aux Anciens Canadiens, where they'll serve you meat pie made out of squirrels and beavers, then bring out dessert: maple sugar on white bread with heavy cream poured on top. Day 5: 73 miles to Victoriaville, most along a bike path on an old railroad bed. Although the path was not paved, it was hard-packed and flat. So, a bit slow, but not a problem at all. Unfortunately, our motel in Victoriaville was too far outside of the downtown for us to explore much. Fortunately, the motel had a pool with a waterslide. Day 6: 64 miles to Sherbrooke. The first half of the day continued on the same bike trail, although the surface got worse and worse as the day went on. At the halfway point, we went to a slate museum in Melbourne, Quebec (site of first slate quarry in North America). Totally awesome, and worth it if you're ever in the area. The bike "path" for the second half of the day was atrocious. Basically a soft dirt singletrack trail through the woods for 15 miles. Miraculously, we only had one crash, and the sand was soft enough that there were no injuries. Luckily, the last part of the path was closed, and we were redirected onto a dirt road... the road was an access road to a gravel pit, so we shared the road with dumptrucks going 50mph, spitting rocks at us. The very last 5 miles or so into Sherbrooke were paved, but by then it was pouring rain. Sherbrooke was having an outdoor comedy festival that night, which looked like it would have been a lot of fun if we could understand spoken French a lot better. Day 7: 52 miles to Newport, Vermont. Today's ride was pretty awesome. We started by getting thoroughly lost in the suburbs of Sherbrooke. We were getting help from another cyclist, when a woman in a car (with a bike on the back of it) stopped and asked the man, "Est-ce que vous aidez les americains?" (Are you helping the Americans?), laughed and then drove off. Dude got us back on track, and on a nice bike path to North Hatley. On the path, we met up again with that guy, and that same lady. Turns out they were off on a ride together, and she had seen us all confused in front of her house twice when we were lost. Not sure how she knew we were Americans, and not, say, from Winnipeg. Other than in Quebec City itself, today was the first climbing of the trip. Up a steep hill out of North Hatley, but then back down into Ayers Cliff. From there, a bike path took us to the border along the Tomifobia River. There are streets and buildings here cut down the middle by the US/Canada border. It took us about 10 seconds to get through customs on our bikes. Customs dude had only one question for us: "Do you have rain gear?" We got poured on for the last 15 minutes or so to our hotel in Newport. A great day. Day 8: 48 miles to St. Johnsbury. Lots of climbing and descending and beautiful scenery today. Nothing too interesting to tell, but another awesome day of riding. Day 9: Rest day in St. Johnsbury. Enjoyed motel pool, AC, and judge shows on daytime TV. Walked around town a bit, went to the Fairbanks Museum (very much like the Harvard Mus. of Natural History). Despite only having 7,000 residents, St. Johnsbury has an art theatre downtown, so we also saw La Vie en Rose on the big screen. Day 10: 40 miles to Fairlee. Another awesome day: great scenery, and nice climbs, and a couple of huge descents. We'd have gone further except that Fairlee has a motel with a drive-in out back. We watched Harry Potter through the window from inside our motel room. Day 11: 60 miles to Newport, New Hampshire. Great first part of the day today, through Lyme and Hanover, until we got to Lebanon. From here, narrow roads and inconsiderate drivers were the rule. According to the NH dept. of transportation, there is a "bike path" along the Sugar River from Claremont to Newport. The first couple of miles were in poor condition, basically a rutted dirt road through the woods. Then, it got worse: inches of soft sand. Not even a mountain bike could have handled this so-called bike path. This was actually an ATV trail. We had to walk our bikes a few miles here. Luckily, we were able to get back on the road to Newport. Day 12: 60 miles to Manchester. Again, a great first part of the day. First 10 miles were climbing, finishing our trip up from the Connecticut River the day before to the base of Mount Sunapee. And, then the descent from Sunapee was fantastic. Max speed was 42 mph, but that's only because I was riding the brakes because the pavement wasn't so smooth. Stopped in Warner to go to the NH Telephone Museum. Again, great place. Recommended if you're in Warner on one of the days they're open. Day took a turn for the worse starting at Concord. First, the temp hit 95. Then, the NHDoT tried to kill us again by telling us on their bike map that it would be a good idea to take route 3A to Manch. Narrow lanes, no shoulder, lots of trucking. We managed to not get killed though, which was nice. We were too exhausted from the heat, though, that we didn't do anything in Manchester except eat and take a dip in the hotel pool. I think we were asleep by 7:30. Day 13: 59 miles to Somerville. Once we got past Nashua, it was actually a nice ride today. It was wicked hot again, but most of the roads we took were shady and lightly traveled. Anyways, it was an awesome trip, all told. It's a good feeling to sorta "do" something for a vacation, and still have a great time.