Never-ending New York

-
Yesterday was a wonderful rest day, mostly due to the lack of activity and the abundance of food. We did venture outside in order to procure more food and to mail yet more items back to San Diego. Earlier in the week Mike had purchased a waterproof stuff sack for his sleeping bag which meant he could send home his non-waterproof stuffsack and rain cover. Thanks to REI for putting a store right next to the bike path in Rochester. We explored the hotel's "fitness center". We mostly wanted to use the pool but also took time to figure out how the temperature controls for the sauna worked and to weigh ourselves on the gym's scales. Somehow we have both regained the weight that we previously lost. Not that it matters, we feel pretty healthy these days!

Today we continued to make our way across the top of New York state. It is taking some time. However, we should make it into Pennsylvania tomorrow. We travelled through towns named after seemingly random European locations - Dunkirk, Angola, and Farnham to name a few. Tomorrow we'll visit Barcelona. Katie, got any travel tips?

We had some nice views of Lake Erie today, although mansions blocked the view a little more often than we would have liked. Our lunch break was in a park by the beach and was very leisurely. Mike is caught up in his current book ("A Man in Full" by Thomas Wolfe) and has been taking any available moment to continue reading. Lucky for us the weather was pleasant and the miles were easy. Flat ground can make such a difference!

Today's mileage: 69 miles.

Seen from the road

Lake Erie Beach

Lunch time nap

Comments

  1. UnknownJuly 12, 2018 at 10:02 PM

    Hola! The internet tells me that there is a cool lighthouse in Barcelona, NY. Maybe you can check it out!

    ReplyDelete
  2. CheriJuly 13, 2018 at 4:09 PM

    In the European names category, Pennsylvania has a city named "King of Prussia" named after Frederick the Great of Prussia. Why would we know this trivia? - Kellie and I stayed at a Holiday Inn there for a lacrosse tournament.

    Ride safely.

    Cheri

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

One More Day

-
Image
It was intensely windy as we woke up at the Leo Carrillo campground in Malibu. My Dad's tent nearly blew away as he was taking it down. As we pushed our first few pedal strokes back on Pacific Coast Highway the breeze blew up clouds of dust and grit that made it hard to see. Thankfully it was worst at the start and eased off as the miles rolled by. Then, on to familiar sights: Topanga Canyon, the Getty Villa, the Santa Monica Pier and the beach bike path. After a lunch time break of a few pizza slices we rode over to the marina to check on the boat. All is well. A little dirty but it looks largely the same as we left it and ready to be restored to its former glory, or even better. We had a few more miles to go so we waved goodbye to the boat and hopped back on the bike path toward Hermosa Beach. My Aunt Kellie, Uncle Randy, and cousin Will live there and were very gracious to host us for Halloween. We ate an incredible home-cooked dinner of chili and corn bread and Caesar salad. ...
Read more

San Francisco

-
Image
Thankfully the rascally raccoons of Olema didn't get quite every bit of food and we still managed to put together a decent breakfast on Friday before our ride into San Francisco. As we approached the city the roads became busier, the neighborhoods more dense, and the turns more frequent. The turns initially made a welcome change from spending 50 miles a day on highway 1 but then grew tiresome. There was much checking of directions as we wound through Marin County and it slowed us down considerably. Thankfully one of our hosts for the weekend, Joven, rode out to meet us as a grocery store and he took the lead towards the Golden Gate bridge. We stopped for some obligatory photos along with 1000 other people. The ride over the bridge was windy but fun. Joven, his wife Katelyn, son Tino, and dog Artie generously put us up for a couple of nights as we had a rest day to give us time to catch up with each other. As a bonus, Blake (whom we stayed with in New York) was also in town. The r...
Read more

It's The People

-
Image
The last few days have been all about friendly faces. We began riding down a sunny stretch of coastal highway when a dark grey fog bank loomed ahead. It felt like we would enter the mist and ride 100 years back in time. More realistically, we rode to a town called Davenport and got pastries and a coffee for my Dad. Next major milestone was riding through Santa Cruz, Aptos, and finally through rolling apple orchards to Watsonville. My childhood friend Mike Haney and his girlfriend Amanda were kind enough to drive down from Mountain View to join us for a Mexican food dinner. They had just taken a weekend away on the northern California coast. They stayed near Gualala in a lodge with Russian architecture - we took photos of it for the blog only a few days prior. We told tales about the trip, and then moved on to Yogurtland to swap more stories over dessert. It was great to see them and especially nice of them to drive to meet our route. With all the socializing we didn't even turn...
Read more