A fine final day—September 1

 We had a beautiful 42 mile ride from Middlebury into Burlington, with views of Lake Champlain and across the lake into the Adirondacks.  We rode through those mountains!  We rode just about 1250 miles in the course of a month.  We saw lovely scenery, struggling small towns, and some struggling not so small towns. There were lots of Trump flags in the rural areas, not nearly enough people wearing masks, dramatic labor shortages, many friendly and curious people, and not as many other bikers as we expected. New York is developing great biking infrastructure, lots of trails and protected lanes, very good signage, and lots of information and suggested routes available on line.  It’s not quite as sophisticated as what we found in Quebec, but New York is well on its way.  Now if they could just put in some switchbacks on the steeper hills.

I’ve made many visits to Middlebury and never saw this tribute to Emma Willard until this morning.  

A bucolic view of Vermont cows, with the Adirondacks in the far distance 

Hope is a retired teacher who remembers how to make a paper hat and sing 

My Hat It Has Three Corners. 

When our group shrunk to eight, the six of us rode together most of the time.  We were a very congenial and supportive party.  I hope to ride with all of them again.

Back to Vermont—August 31

 The final rides of a trip are always bittersweet, loving the ride, and at the same time, looking forward to getting home.  Our group has been so small, only eight people for the last 2 1/2 weeks, so saying good bye tomorrow will be even harder.  We had a nice dinner tonight, talking about our favorite parts of this trip and thinking about rides we might want to do in coming years.  I think we are all especially grateful to feel like life is almost normal while we are riding, after all the cancellations and restrictions of the past year or so.

We rode 48 miles today into Middlebury, Vermont.  We lost count of the number of times we crossed the Hudson River, but we know that today was our second crossing of Lake Champlain. To celebrate the ride, I had an excellent doughnut in the morning from an orchard/bakery, a Creemee, as soft ice cream is called in Vermont, with my Middlebury friends in the afternoon, and a half piece of coconut cream pie after dinner.  That’s going out on a high note!

                             How many bikers does it take to supervise changing a tire?  

                                     We called this fashionable lady Venus de Crown Point

Our lunch stop was at the Crown Point Bridge, the narrowest span across Lake Champlain.  Both the French and the British had forts here in the 18th century.  The stonework in the photo dates from the French fort in the 1730’s.

                                                        Goodbye New York, hello Vermont 

A little bit of everything—August 30

 Today’s ride was just 32 miles to a motel in an undetermined location north of Schroon Lake.  Because the ride was short, we were able to hang out in North Creek until almost 11 am, thereby missing most of the day’s rain.  Our miles were well earned, with some steep climbing, but also great downhills.  We had excellent pavement, terrible pavement, dirt roads, sun, a few minutes of rain, headwinds, tailwinds, pretty good variety for a short ride. 

  A view of Schroon Lake, which has its own flag.

What a nice driftwood sculpture.

Adirondack Road lived up to its name, with lots of hills and trees.  The road is still wet from the shower we rode through, the most rain we’ve ridden in on the whole trip.  Of course, we did cop out on the end of Hurricane Fred, when we could have gotten really wet. 

It’s my birthday—August 29

 I went down the road this morning at a pretty good clip for me, singing “It’s my birthday and I’ll fly if I want to”.  And a fine birthday it has been.  We rode 64 miles, about 3000 feet of climbing, to North Creek, a very pretty little town in the Adirondacks.  It had rained last night, and the clouds were low on the mountains, but no rain all day.  The  ride ended with a splendid 2 mile drop down to the Hudson River valley, very near the river’s headwaters.  I did get a flat tire, but my trusty pit crew, John, Jim, and Susan, helped change it. My new bike has a through axle, a bit different from the quick release tires on my old bike, so it took a bit to remember how to get the tire off the bike.  I hope it’s a long time until my next flat, and my memory is good enough to remember how to do it.  The day ended with an excellent chocolate cake and ice cream.

                     Our lunch stop was at a roadside park next to Blue Mountain Lake. 

Can you spot the satellite dish on the beaver dam?  We are told that the beavers used to have an old fashioned antenna, but they upgraded a couple of years ago.

          The Hudson looks a bit different up here than it does at the new Cuomo Bridge.

North Creek’s Main Street has a 220 foot long mural with over 200,000 pieces of glass, rock, and shells in it.   Under the guidance of a professional artist, the town’s school children and other volunteers took ten years to complete it.  You can guess my favorite segment.

Quiet day—August 28

 Our rest day in Old Forge was gray and cool.  The town is full of tourists and reminds me a bit of Wisconsin Dells.  Most of us opted to stay around our very peaceful cabins, clean our bikes, read, and generally relax.  Susan and Stan, much more energetic, took a 24 mile bike ride.

In addition to the wandering deer, there are a few moose in town.

Back in the Adirondacks—August 27

 We left heat and humidity as we climbed 2700 feet in 51 miles to Old Forge, back in the Adirondack State Park.  My legs and lungs did a lot less complaining about the climbs than they did at the beginning of the trip, although nothing we encountered today matched the steepness of those early rides.  Old Forge is an Adirondack vacation town, lots of people in the last weekend of August, and lots of good restaurants, art galleries, and of course, kitschy souvenir shops.  And lots of deer wandering through yards and down the streets. We have our final day off tomorrow, so I’ll have a chance to explore a bit more.

                                                        A nice inlayed wood barn quilt 

                                                   An old church repurposed as an art center

                                                 One of Old Forge’s many deer

 

                                        Old Forge Pond, where I hope to swim tomorrow 

Today was pie day.  We had this three berry pie for lunch and bought a blueberry peach pie for dessert after dinner.  Instead of our usual picnic lunch, Nancy spotted a garden center which was also a deli and bakery, and we gave them a lot of business.  The pies were all made from fresh fruit and were absolutely scrumptious!

Goodbye, Erie Canal—August 26

 On another hot day, we rode 62 miles into Rome, New York.  Our early morning departure took us through the New York State Fairgrounds, where the fair is now taking place.  At 7:30 am, it was all pretty peaceful.  Just before we left our hotel, a large, fancy bus pulled in, and some drowsy, somewhat bedraggled people got off.  Turned out it was members of the band Three Dog Night who will be performing at the State Fair tonight. 

It seems that all roads don’t lead to Rome, as we a bit lost coming in to the city.  We figured out where we were and got back on target, only to find that the last road into our hotel was blocked off, requiring a detour of a mile or so.  Not bad as detours go, but hard to take at the end of the day.

                                                       Cooling off with cold water after lunch

                                             Sign on a truck in the parking lot of our lunch spot

                                                   We opted for shade as much as possible.

Final views of the canal 

Back on the road—August 25

 Much as I love riding right next to the water, it was nice to leave the crushed limestone of the trail and return to a well-paved road with a good shoulder.  We rode 50 miles into Comillus, a suburb of Syracuse.  Because the heat has returned, we were riding by 7:15 and arrived at our hotel at about 1pm.  Fortunately, the place had a large, air-conditioned lobby where we settled in to wait for our rooms, even offering watermelon to people passing through.  

This is an ideal road for biking, as we are safely tucked in to a nice wide shoulder, behind a rumble strip,  with not much traffic to bother us.

We had lunch at a park next to part of the old canal, abandoned when the canal was enlarged in 1918. The current canal at this point is several miles south.

This photo shows approximately the same scene when the canal was operative.  Hard to believe it is the same spot.

I was fascinated by the stonework that made up the walls of the old lock.  What an engineering feat!

We had biked today’s road in 2013, and I remembered seeing and liking this mural, which is on a wall along the road about 2 miles from the closest town.  Coming to it on a bike, I can slow down or stop to admire it.  Would I do that if I were in a car?

                                                Bike shadows on a hot afternoon 

A different ride

 Every trip feels different, and trips change as people leave or join.  This year several people rode for just the first two weeks, and since we headed west from Albany, we have had only nine people, including leaders Ken and Nancy.  For the most part, we have tended to stay together when we are riding.  We are a jolly group, but we stop less, and I miss lots of good photo opportunities.  If I’m in the front of the group, I don’t want to stop, because everyone behind me stops, and if I’m in the back and stop too much, the rest of the group waits, sometimes a bit impatiently, or I miss a rest stop, as they are ready to continue when I catch up.  

Today we rode 55 miles to Newark, New York.  When I rode along the Erie Canal in 2013, most of the ride from Brockport was on highways, but this year, major new stretches of the Canalway Trail have been opened, so we were along the water most of the way.

Lin, in orange, is one of the slower riders.  Here she is, though, on her 62nd wedding anniversary, leading us down the trail!

On our canal boat ride in Lockport, I learned that the canal is drained every winter to protect the locks.  These floodgates are lowered to control the speed of the drainage.  

We watched New York State fire personnel starting their training in water rescue.  It was a hot day, and the “victims” awaiting rescue looked like they were having a fine time floating in the water. 

If other riders slow down, the leader can stop and take photos of us cruising down the trail.

Lots of canal, no locks—August 23

 We rode 45 miles from Lockport to Brockport, all along the canal.  Alas, there are no locks on this stretch of the canal, but lots of bridges, small towns, and views of two waterfalls.  It was hot, muggy, and sunny; our motel had a pool, so I had a swim for the third day in a row.

Bakeries have been in short supply on this trip, so we’re we’re delighted to find one a short way off the canal at a perfect time for a morning coffee and treat break.

We saw these well packed bikes outside the bakery and quickly identified the riders inside.  They have been riding across the country, having started in Washington State in June.  When we remarked that their bike bags looked well worn, they told us that they had been used on their 2 1/2 year, 25,000 mile trip around the world!

We saw several of these rental houseboats with bikes on them.  Bike and barge sounds like fun.

The waterfall at our lunch park

Ken and Jim sporting identical shirts

I keep seeing murals that look familiar, either because I saw them back in 2013 when I biked along the canal, or because they all look kind of alike.

Lots of locks—August 22

 Today was a planned day off in Lockport, about 30 miles northeast of Buffalo and home to the only step locks on the Erie Canal.  Warning—I love locks.  We had plenty of time to walk around the locks, read about them, and take a two hour boat trip that gave us a chance to ride through the locks. The locks at Lockport have a fifty foot drop, and the original construction in the 19th century was a flight of five locks which took about 2 1/2 hours to navigate.  In the early 20th century, the canal was expanded, and the five locks were replaced with a two step lock which we navigated today.  There is very little commercial traffic on the Erie Canal today, but lots of recreational travel.  

                                        Looking up at part of the original five flight locks. 

A view of a boat going from the upper lock into lower lock.

A contemporary sculpture (based on a photograph) honoring early lock tenders

Going through the lower lock after we had dropped 25 feet as the water level was lowered. 

 

                                                           Shadows on the lock gates 

                                        I’ve added to my bucket list paddling through a lock.

                   Happy campers after a fine day and a good dinner at a Japanese restaurant 

                                       Even without biking we earned our ice cream today