Today, we begin heading home.

Makes me sad, too. But we have miles of beautiful topography and gut-busting culinary experiences still ahead of us. This ride is anything but over.

Most of the ride for the next five days, from here to Tennessee, will have a southern component to it. With any luck, we will arrive in Farragut, Tennessee, eventually. Or not.

If we are really living right, we might avoid a seventh straight day of rain. When I talked to Sarah last night, she said it was 110 in La Quinta. That hardly seems fair.

But when we wake up this morning in Ashland, New Hampshire, we are pleasantly surprised to glimpse glorious, sunny skies — a positive sign bordering on an omen.

The day begins as we ride south along NH-104, through Danbury and along Mount Kearsarge State Park in New Hampshire. Mount Kearsarge is 2,937 feet high. Its name evolved from a 1652 rendering of the indigenous name for the mountain, Carsarga, which is believed to mean “notch-pointed-mountain of pines.”

We ride through Green Mountain National Forest, via Keene, New Hampshire, and Brattleboro, Vermont. Big news source in Brattleboro: the Brattleboro Reformer. Sounds more like a Pilates training device. Click here to check out today’s Brattleboro headlines.

From Brattleboro, we ride west through the Green Mountains on VT-9, the Molly Stark Trail. Stark was the wife of Revolutionary War general John Stark. This trail is thought to be the route used by General Stark on his victory march home from the Battle of Bennington in 1777.

VT-9 is a great road for motorcycles, at least it is this morning. We find spectacular views, nice curves, dry pavement. The absence of rain is a huge bonus.

In Bennington, the Blue Benn is the place to go for lunch. Once there, we chow down (gyro for me and a burrito for Ray) and catch up on the local news. If you want to know what’s happening in Bennington, read the Bennington Banner. Click here to check out today’s Bennington headlines. Bennington is at the west end of the Green Mountain National Forest, about two miles from the Vermont / New York border.

After a morning of mostly decent weather, it gets ugly after lunch. We encounter steady rain all afternoon. It begins as we ride out if Bennington, and doesn’t let up for the next four miserable hours. It is dark, wet, cold and slippery. Do I sound like a broken record? This is the same weather pattern we’ve had for most of the past week. The weather makes riding less-than-comfortable, less-than-optimally-safe, and it’s quite stressful — never knowing when a moose will saunter into the roadway ahead of me. I’m sure ill feel even better about the New England weather when I talk to Sarah tonight and she gleefully tells me it’s been 110 in La Quinta (and 88 in our pool!).

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Leaving Bennington, we ride south on US-7, crossing into Massachusetts at Williamstown, home of Williams College. The town was named after Ephraim Williams, who was killed in the French and Indian War. In 1756, that war escalated from a regional affair into a world-wide conflict.

Other notable natives and residents of Williamstown include:

• Actor Matthew Perry, best known for his Emmy-nominated role as Chandler Bing on NBC’s “Friends”
• Songwriter Cole Porter (“I Get a Kick Out of You”), who — unlike most successful Broadway composers, wrote both the lyrics and the music for his songs
• Former Major League Baseball commissioner Fay Vincent, who presided over his first World Series in 1989 when the Loma Prieta earthquake (7.1 on the Richter scale) caused game three at San Francisco’s Candlestick Park to be postponed

We follow MA-43 from Williamstown. It takes us into New York state.

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Heading southwest on NY-68W, we arrive in Hudson, aptly named for the river it sits on, for the explorer Henry Hudson, and for the car of the same name — produced in Detroit from 1909 to 1954. As you may recall from fifth-grade history, in the early 17th century, Hudson explored the area around what is now New York, while looking for a western route to Asia. He sailed under the auspices of the Dutch East India Company, and explored the river that eventually was named for him, laying the foundation for Dutch colonization of the region.

We follow the Hudson River, north to south, much of the afternoon. We briefly pass through Catskill, which — for someone (me) who has two cats — is an unsettling name for a town. Is it “Cat-skill” … which indicates feline cleverness? Or is it “Cats-kill,” which is more ominous and foreboding? Truth be told, the Catskill Mountains got their name from early Dutch colonial settlers. Kats Kill, in Dutch, means Cat Creek. Yes, the mountains were named after a creek.

Continuing south, we pass through Tivoli Bars and shortly after that, Red Hook. Red Hook was not named for the popular beer brewed in Washington State; it apparently gets its name from the red foliage on trees on a small strip of land on the Hudson River. Notable residents of Red Hook include TV chef Mario Batali, the peripatetic ponytailed media personality, seen on the Food Network, ABC, the Comedy Channel, PBS and elsewhere. Click here if you’re a Mario Batali fan.

We cross the Hudson, going over the Kingston-Rhinecliff Bridge on NY-199. If we continue down the Hudson another 30 miles or so, we’ll stop by the US Military Academy, better known as West Point. Click here if you want to learn more about West Point. Don’t expect to find an application for admission; for that, you need a congressional appointment, and — for most of you — the ability to turn back the clock 50 years.

We continue down US-9, on the west side of the Hudson. We look across the river, and see the Vanderbilt Mansion National Historic Site in Hyde Park, New York. It’s a 211-acre tribute to industrial wealth in the early 20th century. Frederick William Vanderbilt purchased the property in 1895 for use as a seasonal country residence. The 54-room mansion was built between 1896 and 1899, a good example of Beaux-Arts architecture, which we seldom see in La Quinta. Click here for a free tour of the Vanderbilt Mansion.

It’s a short ride (and symbolically a million miles) from the Vanderbilt Mansion to tonight’s resting place, the Super 8 ($79 tax) in New Paltz, New York. Notable New Paltz residents include boxing champion Floyd Patterson, and Jason West, who married 26 gay couples while in office as Mayor.

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Day Twelve Summary: the Molly Stark Trail, I Get a Kick Out of You, channeling Henry Hudson, a taste of Vanderbilt. Today’s miles ridden: 285, half of them in miserable conditions.

For today’s complete route from Ashland, New Hampshire, to New Paltz, New York, click here.

What will tomorrow bring?