A nice, short, (mostly) easy drive (Day 2)
I woke up this morning around 7AM, and Isagani and I contemplated the best way to bring down the weight of the truck and trailer. We decided to go for the low hanging fruit, which was the steel doors from the back of the truck (~300 lbs), the spare truck tire (~100 lbs), and the set of snow tires for the Kia (~150 lbs). It sounds easy, and the tires were, as they were stored in the back of the Kia. The doors, however, were stored under the front of the Kia. In order to get to them, the deck, outdoor shower, and four spare trailer tires had to be removed, along with the two rear tie downs for the Kia. With everything removed, I used a crow bar to shimmy the steel doors from the front of the dump body to the rear, and out onto Isagani's waiting skid steer. I love having farm equipment handy! We stacked the doors and tires on the skid steer and took everything over to the Subaru.
For Phase 2 of our weight distributing adventure, we removed the Kawasaki 250 Ninja and Kawasaki ZX-11 off the motorcycle trailer. Then we slid the truck doors on the floor of the trailer, and moved the bikes back onto the trailer, so they were sitting on the doors. Next, the 5 spare tires were stacked on the back of the trailer, and everything was strapped down. The whole process took almost two hours.
By then, Shenee was awake, and she went to play with the farm animals again. The goat didn't like her, and jumped at her a few times, which I thought was hilarious. It tried once with me as well, but I just pushed him back, and never had a problem again. We had a few visitors before we were able to get back on the road, one of which was kind enough to take a few pictures of us and the tiny house at the farm.
After successfully getting out of the driveway, and navigating the low hanging branches of the back roads, we got on 101 and headed west to Merrimack. This is a very easy drive that I probably did at least 100 times while attending the University of New Hampshire, but there is one tricky part, which anyone familiar with the Manchester area will recognize. As you head west on Route 101, you merge with I-93 and need to cross 4 lanes of traffic within a mile in order to continue on 101 west. This is a BUSY section of highway, with people crossing all over the place, and I knew it would be interesting. Crossing the first lane was fine. The next lane appeared to be open, but just as I started to merge, the guy in the next lane over decided he wanted that space. In a car, this isn't a big deal, you just turn the wheel back in the other direction and try again. With the house, any kind of quick movement is accentuated by the trailer. I tried to be smooth, but my slight jerk of the wheel to get back in my lane induced a bit of sway in the trailer. Nothing I couldn't handle, but not fun, especially when you have a car on either side of you.
Once that lane was clear, I tried again and successfully made it into lane the middle lane. By now, more than 1/2 of the 1 mile section was used up, and I still had to cross one more lane at a minimum. I found an opening, signaled, and started to move over, and AGAIN, someone merged into my space. Again, I moved back into my lane, but this time, there was a whole line of cars in my lane. By now, the dashed white line had turned solid to indicate that that 101 was splitting off from I-93. Eventually, I decided that I wanted to stay on 101, someone was going to get cut off. I saw a gap big enough to fit in, and made my move. Phew!
With that done, we proceeded off the highway to my buddy Ty's parents house in Merrimack. Of course, the road I choose to take had a detour that routed us through a few neighborhoods and back roads. We finally made it through, and arrived around 10:30. Nancy was kind enough to make us a late breakfast just for us before getting back to work. I unloaded one of the motorcycles, and took off for northern NH to visit my grandparents, and Shenee went back in the direction we had just came from to visit an old friend.
I got back to Merrimack around 7PM, and again Nancy (and Gary), had made a delicious meal for us. My buddy Brett who I haven't seen since winter also drive over from the coast, and we spent hours outside by the fire reminiscing about old times and all the shenanigans we used to pull.
Daily Stats:
Mileage: 47 miles
Travel Time: 1 hour
Fuel Cost: $0
Toll Cost: $0
