Jericho, VT to Tiverton, RI

Friday, June 20—Jericho VT to Tiverton, RI — 273 miles 

Took off early this morning on I-89. It runs through beautiful mountains and trees with nothing much else, so we again played Naked Alphabet. Or started to but then got to talking and kept forgetting where we were in the alphabet. Our first stop was in Lebanon, NH, at the LL Bean Outlet. Sarah bought four cute sale tops; I am still trying to pare off the pounds and feel to buy few clothes before I reach my desired weight. Speaking of which, after shopping at LL Bean, we went to a Dunkin Donuts near the shopping area and had coffee and an old fashioned doughnut to dunk in it. Then we got back on the highway (after a couple of U-turns) and backtracked to I-91 south.

We next stopped in Northampton, Mass. I had bicycled through Northampton in 2012 on my charity bike ride from Stillwater, OK, to Bristol, RI, and had liked this large, hip, college town. There are five well-known colleges/universities within 10 miles of Northampton: Smith College, Northampton College, Amherst College, University of Mass, and Mount Holyoke College, plus a couple of other lesser known colleges/schools. The town is both hip and historic. It was settled in 1654 and contains the site of a church where Cotton Mather preached.

We walked the downtown area and stopped at Ten Thousand Villages, a “Fair Trade Retailer since 1946.” Here I bought a clay owl whistle to go with my collection and a hand stamped Indian tablecloth and four napkins for Phil & Lois. The saleswoman had only two of the matching napkins, so I took

her phone number and hiked back to the car where I had left my cell phone so that I could give her P&L's address and zip code for mailing the additional two. It was very hot, and there was no easy outdoor place to get a refreshing drink, so we ended up buying cold drinks and drinking them on a shaded wall near the car.

We got to Tiverton about 5:30pm to find Lois making a big chicken salad and garlic bread for dinner. After dinner we went to Bristol and had delicious ice cream at the Daily Scoop across from Independence Park. There were many people listening to a band in the park in early celebration of July 4th. Bristol always celebrates the occasion with much fanfare, holding a huge parade and even striping their parade route red, white, and blue (left).