By John Rowntree
Photos by John, Justin Vezina, Robert Cipriano, and Peter Walker

We had a successful fifth edition of this tour in southwestern New Hampshire to kick off the AONE driving season. At midweek, the forecast was in flux but pointed to a mostly dry Saturday until late afternoon. Of course, by Friday that had changed to some rain — who knows where or when? But I kept my promise to my Spider that it would be out of the garage and that the sedan would stay home.

We gathered at the Maple Station Market, which is large and full of tempting food and souvenirs. Our route took us on a large circle around (but not through) Peterborough. We first went south through the village of Temple, and then motored west on the south side of Temple Mountain. This dropped us onto NH Route 124 to take us through Jaffrey to the east side of Mount Monadnock. We travelled north beside the mountain by the State Park and several camps, but the summit was hidden in clouds.

At Dublin, we headed west along Dublin Pond, which would have provided more good views of the peak. We headed north to our rest stop at the Country Store in scenic, historic Harrisville. We left heading east and north to cruise through Hancock and Greenfield. We then concluded the tour by taking a back road over the ridge between North Pack and Pack Monadnock, crossing the Wapack Trail and a National Wildlife Refuge, to drop down half a mile to Brady’s American Grill in Peterborough for lunch.

The roads in this area are in great condition and traffic was so light that we had no issues keeping eight cars together for the full 54 miles!

Il Giro Participants
Garret & Deb Ahlstrom - ’91 164S
Tyler Heath - ’24 Giulia
Justin Vezina - ’24 Giulia
Robert Cipriano - ’23 Giulia
Stephan dePanasse - ’18 Giulia
Jonathan Labarre & Danielle Walker - ’18 Giulia
Peter Walker & Meg Anderson - ’77 Spider
John & Roberta Rowntree - ’87 Spider