Canals and stuff

07/15/09 - These every other day updates are a little cumbersome because I forget some good stuff. The reason I could not update yesterday was because I was just too tired. For some reason, yesterday’s ride just took it out of us. We did have a pretty fierce headwind, and there were a surprising number of steep rollers, so that might have been the problem, but still, it seemed like we were riding in soft sand all day. Or maybe it has to do with the fact that every time we cook anything, it comes out of Marc's bags, and not mine. He's down to like a ziploc sandwich bag full of food and I still have two grocery bags worth of stuff in my panniers. I'm going to have to start jettisoning food soon.We managed to cover about 60 miles and then found a great place to camp in Macedon, NY. It was basically a city park, on the Eerie canal, that allows hikers, bikers and boaters to camp for free. There were no showers, but water and portable toilets were furnished. And the park was quiet and every bit as nice as any of the campgrounds we have paid for on this trip. The biggest problem we had was trying to stay awake until the sun went down. I seriously considered going to bed without dinner because I was too tired to think about cooking or cleaning up. In the end, we did make a simple dinner of miso soup and cous cous, but it was a struggle. Then we took some silly photos of ourselves clowning around at the locks on the canal. The canal and the canal path that we have been following are really cool. We have yet to see any boats actually go through the locks, but we understand now how they work. I didn’t realize that no pumps are needed to move the water in and out of the various chambers, only valves. And then we went to bed at about 8:15. One of the funny stories that I forgot to mention the other day was that Marc had a tube of lip balm that he had been carrying for the whole trip and he had used it in the tent right before he fell asleep. In the morning when he went to use it again, the tube was empty. Like, completely empty, not even a little residue. We still have no idea what happened to it. We thought initially that it would turn up as blob of wax in the tent or one of our sleeping bags, but so far it hasn’t. Maybe something got in and ate it, I don’t know.


And then today. Today we hammered pretty hard and ended up with about 70 or so miles by the end of the day. The weather has been an absolute gift, that’s for sure. We did have one small mechanical problem, however. Yesterday my left pedal started feeling funny and making a really loud clicking sound on each revolution. It turned out that the bearings were shot and there was a lot of slop between the pedal body and the axle. I was a little concerned that the additional movement would have a negative effect on my knee, so we decided that if we passed a bike shop we would get it checked out. Today we just happened to be riding by the Towpath Bike Shop in Pittsford, NY at exactly 10:00, which was when they opened. I ended up buying a new set of pedals just to make things easier and so I wouldn’t have to worry about it anymore. We also topped up our tires with the shop’s pump and got directions to a great coffee shop, so it turned out to be a good stop. We rode all day today on the Eerie Canal Trail, which is really great. When all of the sections are done it will be over 500 miles long. We took it right through the city of Rochester and never even knew we were in a city. It was awesome not having to worry about vehicular traffic all day today. The only downside was that it was really dusty and all of our stuff got covered in dust. A worthwhile trade off in my mind. Tonight we are camped in Middleport, NY, again at a city park. This one even had showers and we both took immediate advantage of that. We also walked into town and had dinner at the diner in town. We both had meatloaf with mashed potatoes and lots of gravy. And bread pudding for desert. We tend to get really hungry, usually about every two hours. We may even go back there for breakfast, thus sparing me the need to fire up the flamethrower. Tonight they are calling for some rain overnight, which wouldn’t be so bad, as long as I don’t leave any electronic devices plugged in and charging outdoors. We observed today that we have spent very little time indoors in the last six days. Only going into convenience stores and eating a coupe of meals. We are both very happy that we have been able to camp every night so far.At some point I'm sure we will end up having to stay in a motel room. The owner of the Dunkin Donuts that we were eating in the other day asked us "you have every thing you need to ride to Michigan on those two bikes?" We both responded at the same time, "actually, we have more than we need to ride to Michigan." It's pretty cool how little stuff you really need. Tomorrow we have about twenty more miles of the canal trail before we have to return to the real world of cars and trucks and road signs. Tomorrow we are also going into Canada, and we might even end up staying in Canada, somewhere around Niagara Falls. We’ll have to see how it all shakes out. And the next day? Buffalo.