It's amazing how early you can get up when you are camping. I was up again at about 0530 much to chagrin of my fellow hogs. This day was to be our trip to Boston and with the memory of our "off road" adventures of day 2 fresh in my mind I was hoping it would be less eventfull.
We pulled out of camp about 0830 which was about 1/2 hour later than planned, but Jay felt the need to wash his bike off from his mud hole experience, and I needed to bump start mine because I had run the battery down charging all my various electronic devices without the engine running. Jay actually took his bike up to the outdoor dishwashing station outside the bathrooms and washed his bike with the dish sprayer. I don't know if anyone got a picture of it, but if they did, I will certainly post it.
The trip to Boston was a good ride. It is about 147 miles from North Adams where we are camped to Boston. The first 40 miles is awesome riding on Rt. 2 (Mohawk Trail). It is great road with lots of sweeping turns that crosses 3 mountain peaks. It runs along rivers and lakes as well. We enjoyed this part of the ride immensely. Of course, once we got closer to Boston it was all highway riding. That wasn't too bad either except for the heat. It was cool when we left camp, in the mid 70's or so. By the time we got to Boston it was sweltering and very humid. The traffic wasn't too bad going in. 
The highways are all 3 or 4 lanes wide, so we pretty much picked a lane and went. The GPS performed flawlessly. We did not hit one unpaved road. I think it should be noted for anyone who may plan a trip to MA, that it would appear that speed limits are a mere suggestion, and not even a strong suggestion at that. There were many times where the speed limit was 45 and we were going closer to 60 and being passed by numerous cars and trucks. We did see a guy get pulled over. I can only imagine how fast he must have been going, because the troopers around here seem to be willing to allow 15 or 20 miles over the limit.
Once we arrived in Boston we went to the Naval Shipyards. This is the home of the famed USS Constitution (Old Ironsides). We had every intention of taking the tour until we saw the line standing outside under a tent in the heat. The ship is currently undergoing a major renovation and was missing one of it's top masts as well as all of it's yard arms. They were busy rigging 2 of the 3 masts. You had to walk through a security station with an x-ray machine and metal detector. Of course I had my pocket knife on me and there was no way I was getting through security with it. I would have been content to just stand in the air conditioned security office for an hour or two while the others went in, but they kept looking at the line standing outside and we all decided that we really didn't need to board the ship that badly. We did walk down the pier and visit a WWII destroyer the USS Cassin Young. We enjoyed that and it was even free. We did drop donation in the box. At that point the debate arose over where to eat. We had not eaten breakfast that morning other than a small snack of stuff we had around camp. It was decided that everyone could go for pizza. Scott broke out the i-phone and used one of his handy-dandy apps to find us a place called Pappa Ginos. We had a good lunch and sat around for a while in the A/C talking. At that point we decided that it was just too hot to wander around Boston seeing the rest of the sites. That's the thing about touring on a bike. If it's unbearably hot or cold it is difficult to enjoy just rambling around. We decided to head back for camp and make an early day of it. We found our way out of Boston via the trusty GPS. It actually was able to route us around the major traffic that was already starting to clog the highway. We made it back about 2/3 of way to camp when we ran into a major rain storm. I have ridden a lot of rain, but this was probably the hardest I have been in. We rode in the rain for about 1/2 hour which got us soaked to the skin (we decided not to don rain suits 
because it was so hot). Once we ran out of the rain, it was an enjoyable ride back to North Adams. We stopped at the store and bought hot dogs, hot sausages, buns and a bagal and cheese for Kevin (he doesn't eat meat). Back at camp we started a fire and cooked up the food and talked around the fire. Scott and Kevin turned in early (about 9:30), but Jay and I stayed up til about 11:30. All in all it was a good day. Any day on the bike is a good day.Tomorrow...we shall see.
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