Day 9 - Huricane Irene

It was so nice to sleep in a regular bed.  Really, I think that camping out each day is the hardest part of this trip so far.  Last night we went as a group to a pizza joint and had dinner and had a meeting to decide how we were going to rearrange our schedule due to the storm.  Right now it looks as though we still might get to Boston.  We will ride tomorrow where we were going to ride today and then we will take the commuter train into Boston if wanted.  I am pretty excited about that.

When Irene arrived here in Exeter, it was pretty much just a tropical storm.  It did rain throughout the night and today rained rather heavy this morning.  I am glad that we didn’t have to be out in it.  As we were eating breakfast today in the hotel the power went out and remained out for about 6 hours.  John and I went for a little walk a few minutes ago and didn’t see any more damage that an afternoon thunderstorm in Idaho does many times during the summer.  There were branches on the ground and leaves, but that was the extent of things here.  It will make for some debris dodging the next few days on the bike, however.  It is my first experience to weather a hurricane and am glad that it settled down from what they thought it might so.  I hope that all along the eastern seaboard it has not done a lot of damage.

Out on our walk, I discovered that this town of Exeter is home of the pretty famous Phillips Exeter boarding school.  Since 1970, it has boarded girls as well as boys and has been a feeder school in a way for Harvard.  It was pretty neat looking over the campus.  There are some pretty old buildings.  I don’t know how any family could send their kids away at 9^th grade.  I am sure happy that we were able to share those years with our own kids.  They leave too soon anyway, right?

This town was also an early player in this countries fight for independence. It was founded in 1638 by the Rev. John Wheelright.  Exeter was one of the four original towns in the colony and following New Hampshire’s provisional declaration of Independence on January 5, 1776, it served as the capital of the new state during the American Revolution. This is a building in which George Washington was entertaines in November 4, 1789.

I thought since we were going to be sitting around today, that I might find a church and attend their meetings.  I did call the local bishop here and left a message and he gave me a call back this morning that all the local wards had canceled their meetings because of the storm.  I guess that was good considering the power went out just after he called.  However, it would have been nice to be able to be in church.