We’re currently in upstate New York, where we entered the Adirondack mountain range yesterday. As we attempted to depart this morning, Bob’s truck failed to start. We attempted to jumpstart it, but ended up having to call AAA. They towed his truck to the nearest town, Old Forge, and Bob replaced the battery. We’re cautiously optimistic that that was all it needed, and he is currently headed back to camp.
While Sammy and I wait for him, I’ll catch up on our progress here. After the ferry across Lake Michigan, I biked up north to Ludington, which seemed like a popular place for locals to vacation. It has a nice beach on the coast of Lake Michigan. Then we traveled east for a few days, mostly on rail trails. My bike routes are normally through quite rural areas, and that was very true in Michigan. It was fairly non eventful, as we were focused on getting ourselves and Sammy through immigration into Canada for our next leg. Bob got all of the necessary paperwork, and we were able to cross in easily, though he still makes fun of me for saying “cutting stuff” when the Canadian border guard asked what our camping knives were for.
In Canada we traveled along the northern coast of lake Erie (great lake #3 on this trip, for those keeping score at home). It continued to be mostly farmland on that side of the border as well. But the coastal highways made for some great low-stop cycling, which gave me a good opportunity for breaking my 100 mile PR.
We had some rainy days, including one 115 mile soaker that took out my tail light. Unfortunately, that prevented us from much in the way of side trips, but our main reason for this leg was to visit Niagara Falls! This was a stretch goal for the trip, and I’m very happy we did it. I’ve seen a ton of waterfalls on this trip, but Niagara was by far the most jaw dropping
I also got to bike across an international border, which was a neat little bonus!
Back on the USA side, we’re making our way across three state of New York, staying at parks along Lake Ontario (#4!). We thought we’d have a great view of the Aurora Borealis over the weekend, with a clear northern view over the lake, but we turned out to only have a clear, light-pollution free view of the stars. Since then we’ve been having to skirt changing stormy weather forecasts, taking advantage of free cancellation policies and double booking at times. The local news weather person blamed the unpredictable pattern on Storm Debby.
While the lake itself has been turbulent, the sunsets at the parks alongside have been gorgeous.
If we have to be stuck somewhere with a mechanical, I’m not sad it’s here.
Our “radical sabbatical” is very quickly nearing an end. It came as a surprise when I realized that the next two states – Vermont and New Hampshire – will take about a day each to cross. My flight home is now booked for Aug 22, and that’s with some buffer time added in for, well, problems like today’s. If we can get through the next week with minimal issues and good weather, I’m hoping we have time for some fun side trips, and a good celebration night in Maine.
Our fundraising for bikems has finally broken the $6K donation barrier! That leaves $4K to go to meet our goal. That will be a challenge, but I’m going we can still pull it off!