George waited patiently (okay, not so patiently) while I made a stop to displace my prior sad experience with Vermont maple syrup. I purchased a small jug at the bargain price of $6.99 (compared with $2.99 I paid for the thimble sized jar of "original" Vermont syrup I purchased with my pancakes some 2 weeks ago now).
We have had a number of "different" culinary treats along the way. We often decide to try local favorites or unusual menu items just for the experience. For instance, in Fredericton we tried deep-fried pickles, which turned out to be rather delicious. Today, at lunch, I tried a sweet potato burrito (having never experienced such an unlikely combination with hot sauce no less). It too was very tasty, and I would order one again given the opportunity. Most of our meals are rather pedestrian, and we tend to have the same thing for breakfast almost every day: oatmeal. As you might expect, there is a wide variety of oatmeal alternatives, from the "fresh out of the envelope" type, to the homemade, fresh and piping hot stuff, with raisins and brown sugar, cooled somewhat by a small amount of milk. I also learned that a little butter goes very well with oatmeal, having picked that up in the southern states earlier in our trip.
We spent much of today dodging raindrops or a fine mist, but never really needed to endure anything more than a short cloudburst. In fact, it seemed that as soon as we put on our rain jackets, the rain stopped, leaving us sweltering inside what amounts to a plastic bag. Sometimes I wonder whether it is easier to just get wet from rain rather than to soak in sweat inside of one's coat (as we wear our full motorcycle gear for safety regardless of the weather - full-faced helmets, Kevlar padded jacket and motorcycle pants with Kevlar knees, as well as leather boots and gloves). Today the temperatures swung from a low of 14°C to a high of 28°C (from 58°F to 82°F).
Today was a relatively slow progress day, as we spent very little time on the freeways (which meant that we had both an enjoyable and sometimes frustrating time traversing small cities and towns from New Hampshire to upstate New York). We left Gorham at 7:30 this morning and stopped for lunch at a Mexican joint in Keene, New Hampshire (notable for its student population of approximately 1/3 of the total town, its world's largest Pumpkin Fest where thousands of pumpkins are carved and put on display each year, and as the city where the Robin Williams' "Jumanji" was primarily filmed).
A rather slow threading of our way through Vermont and the New York cities of Troy, Albany and Schenectady, brought us to Oneonta, New York (a total of 537 km or 332 miles), where we enjoyed a good Italian meal at Sabatino's.