7.6.18. Friday. Wilton, Maine to Bennington, Vermont.After wandering the pretty grounds of Wilson Lake Inn, including a walk by the lake, we loaded up and rolled out.
Although it looked nice out early in the day, it began to cloud up. I ducked into Steve’s while Jeff fueled the bike. By time I came out, it had begun to rain, pretty hard. Fortunately it didn’t last long, although the morning was damp and, off and on, drizzly. We did some geocaching and traveled through small towns, in particular “Mexico” which fit the Team Strange Melting Pot theme.
Very nice stop at Rumford Falls, Maine. A little riverside park had a Paul Bunyan "Muffler Man" with his Babe, and an appropriately sized Adirondack chair; a hydroelectric project; a monument to Edmund Muskie; some very odd cutouts apparently intending to represent a small Native American encampment on the bank of the river; the remains of an old mill; and a geocache, of course. (For those not familiar with Muffler Men, they are fiberglass statues, originally used by gas stations to urge motorists to replace their mufflers, and often re-purposed by substituting the original muffler that the man was holding with other accoutrements, in this case, an ax. For more information see: Roadside America's website).
More small towns. Gorham and Jefferson seemed especially pretty. We had planned on Mount Washington, but took heed of the warnings that the steep road could be rough and dangerous in wet or windy weather. With storm clouds gathering overhead, we decided this was not the day for it. At the lower elevations we dipped in and out of questionable weather but overall it wasn’t bad, so it’s hard to tell if we made the right call or not. Hopefully, at our next opportunity to try Mt. Washington there will be a clear “go” signal.
More small towns and then, Vermont! The scenery in Vermont (and New Hampshire) is always stunning. But it was an especially great day for clouds, so the sky scenery was a dramatic and breath-taking as the mountainous landscape.
Montpelier is home to Vermont’s Liberty Bell replica. Although our directions said it was housed in the museum, before we paid admission, I asked the docent if it was viewable. Turns out it’s not actually in the museum. It’s housed in a hallway between the museum and the Capitol building. Got our photo and decided to take time for a real sit-down lunch, thus getting our receipt too. (And we got the obligatory motorcycle photo before searching out the Bell.) We found a Mexican place for lunch, Julio's, and enjoyed a decent meal for the first time in days. 
A whispering bench in Barre, a fire tower with a scenic view, more dramatic cloud scapes and then, perhaps one of my favorites, the floating bridge.Three young boys were leaping off the railing of this wooden, water-level structure (it’s floating!) into the pretty river below, throwing glistening droplets into the air, swimming to shore, scrambling up the bank, and racing each other to the center of the bridge to do it again and again. A historic house with a millstone outside, a pretty red barn and weeping willow at the water’s edge and a tiny park, with a geocache, completed the picture. Quintessential small-town New England summer day!
Picturesque barns, solar farms, old and new “general stores,” and houses decked with painted gingerbread trim and flowers made up the rest of the day. And then Bennington, VT.We ended our day in Bennington Vermont as planned, at the Best Western. After the big lunch late in the afternoon in Montpelier we were not particularly hungry and, in any event, the most appealing “restaurant” we could see within walking distance of our hotel was the snack bar of a bowling alley. (Billy T’s Dairy Bar was closed.) We weren’t excited about getting back on the bike to hunt for food, so we walked a bit and wandered into the strip mall behind the hotel. We by-passed its restaurant offerings and instead bought some ready-made stuff from the Price-Chopper grocery that we brought back to the room.
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