It was requested by the THaPS Executive Council that I post some photos from our collection of photo-evidence gathered along the THaPS route, so here they are. Again mucho thanks to the most excellent Organization Committee. We had a very fun day, it was challenging but very rewarding too.
We were very impressed by the amount of work and detail that went into constructing the THaPS destinations list and the cleverly weighted Bonus list. It was not easy to determine which of the several Bonus configurations would give the participant the clear advantage. Some routes were too long, some too short, some too unpredictable. We ended up building a moderate length route that we estimated at 7 hours riding time, including adjustments for lunch, potty breaks and evidence gathering.
The official FJReady Planning guide:
Someday I'll learn to use electronica for this.
Of course as soon as the rally ******* master issued the 'official NEDRS 2012 THaPS Bonus List at the pre ride meeting all the careful planning needed adjustement to accommodate the "Treasures in the Wild" additional Bonus offerings. But no time for that, let's hit the road:
First stop:
Smuggler's Notch State Park-
Here is Moko (we renamed our 'mojo' to Moko after a friends lovable dog that we had recently been caring for)giving me a good luck kiss to start the day.
Next Stop was over the notch at Smuggler's Notch Ski Area:
About and hour later we arrived at one on my favorite ski areas:
Leaving Jay we ran across these big wood carvings that Moko loved:
Then it was off to Derby Line, VT for some international flavor at the Haskell Free Library. Part USA, part Canada, All Good!
After leaving Derby line we enjoyed a quick blast to Burke Mtn in East Burke. Not much ski traffic in August.
At about this time we thaought it would be a good time to replenish the body (and rest the butt) so we had lunch a great little country store place that made delicious turkey breast, stuffing and cranberry sause sandwiches. Yummy. This proved to be a risky stop as it wasn't quick and we would later be reminded that the best laid plans do not always work out.
However at this time we were feeling pretty good and continued on our path to St. Johnsbury to score some points at the Yamaha dealer (very friendly), the Taco Bell (a packet of hot sauce) and the Fairbanks Museum and Planetarium: (Moko wanted to go in but we had to say no)
Somewhere in here we picked up some brewery points:
And then off to Cabot Creamery. Moko claimed to be born here.
Then it was time to find the Grandview Winery which turned out to be a little challenge. Of course it meant a several mile detour on unpaved roads so I was sure it was part of Fred's plan given his affinity for dirt. But we persevered and found the place without much help from Garmina as she didn't recognize all the roads on the detours. If it wasn't for some hand made paper signs on sticks that pointed to the winery, we may still have been out there. However the view was grand as the name implies and it was a nice place to visit:
Now it was time to make a beeline for Warren Vt as we had two more ski ares to grab if we wanted bonus points and not much time to get them. We altered our plans to skip a couple other planned stops (points) and focus on the ski areas, which we got, Sugarbush and Bolton Valley.
According to Garmina we had only 1 minute to spare at this point if we wanted to meet the 5:00 deadline for the 10% overall score bonus. So it was hammertime. Fortunately we had no traffic trouble getting back to Stowe and we logged an official return time of 4:57. Close!
We turned in the gathered treasure for official receipt and we were done.