A ride to New Hampshire

This morning, the chosen Sunday ride leads to New Hampshire. It was a nice morning so there was an early start time. It was a little chilly, so I stopped and put the liner in my coat and changed to the cold weather gloves. With the heated hand grips, the ride became more pleasant. I had a general idea of where to go but not having the GPS hooked up made it somewhat an adventure. I just kept the sun over my shoulder and I was able to make it in a little under two hours. That's about an hour and a half with all my breaks. After arriving, I noticed the low fuel light on so I filled up with gas. After 8800 miles, the F650GS gets 69.56 miles per gallon.
For the most part, the trip was secondary roads, but a small part of the trip up was on Rt. 495 and 3. The highways didn't have much traffic for that time of the morning so I just kept up with the few cars on the road. Unfortunately, I didn't see the section of sod, that some truck dropped, until it was too late. Fortunately, route 3 was slow and I managed to maneuver so my tires hit it, I was able to maintain control. The car in front of me softened it up a bit, I imagine. I also traveled along parts of routes 2, 2A, 3A, 4, 27, 62, 117, and 225. The start of the trip was quite hazardous. Through a couple of small towns, much of the roadway was covered with, what appeared to be, freshly shredded vegetation. I guessed this was due to some hail as a storm hit the area the previous night. While I got caught in the rain, and I thought I got a very brief period of hail, perhaps not too far away, heavier, more damaging hail occurred. In any case, the debris made riding tricky, until I got out of the area. The rest of the roads were clear and just a few puddles remained.
There were many detours on the return trip due to Memorial Day parades. At that time, the sun was almost directly overhead so dead reckoning wasn't easy. Once I found myself on some back road, off of the main routes, I would just guess and hope for the best. These trips are nice because one may find themselves in areas off the beaten path. These areas are my goals on these rides. Coming across a nice area makes it all the more fun. Before I left, I went through the trouble of printing out a route map with turn by turn directions. Those got forgotten at home, but that might have made the trip more enjoyable.