Days 5 and 6 of The Empire State Trail

The last two days have been hot and heavy for the Ryan brothers. Yesterday, a trip between Amsterdam and Utica, reach 91 degrees, and with high, high humidity. The morning was fine, but the afternoon was just draining. Amsterdam saw us leaving and having a pretty good morning, covering 40 miles before lunch, spinning along in the cool morning breezes in the shade of the trail. We ended up about lunchtime in a town caled Little Falls, which was actually aross the river from the trail. There are very few clues to the services in the towns we pass. We went across the river to look for what we might find. Unfortunately it looked like all of Little Falls had gone out of business. Along Main Street we must have seen half a dozen for sale signs, with most bisinesses closed or boarded up. And it looks like it was all recently, too. Very odd. We found a small cafe called "A little place on Main," run by a husband and wife, where we got sandwiches and cold drinks, and a nice confortable seat for my sore, sore bottom. I stupidly left my leather saddle at home, sticking with the modern split saddle I've been using for the past 2 years. Unfortunately in that time I haven't ridden multiple days at 70+ miles. Lesson learned. At one point we saw a few people by the side of the trail, where there was some info and hopefully a map. As I got closer i saw what the people were looking at, a great big hawk, perched on the kiosk and not phases by any of the people looking at him (gawking, you could say). Not a sight often seen at home, for sure Well, we set off for Utica from Little Falls to finish the day and it just got hotter and hotter, and our road changed from shady tracks through the woods, to exposed roads in the sunshine. At one time we passed a couple of teens hanging at their pool next to their house and I was tempted to ask for a quick dip, just to cool off. We drained our bottles quickly, and there are very few places to find more water. We did find some ice cream at a small shop at one of the locks, and gobbles it down quickly and filled our bottles before hitting the road again.

We eventually ended up straggling into Utica, and up a hill to find a Quality Inn that would have us (all other optons seemed booked). We showered, washed our filty smelly clothes, and traipsed off for an Italian dinner at a local place across the highway/road/stroad, and retired early, hoping to get out early on Wednesday, as it was rumored to be a rainy afternoon. Wednesday morning we started the day the McD's way, grabbing a Mcbreakfast since Quality Inn doesn't have a quality selection for the morning meal. Off we went, heading along the canal again. We soon passed through Rome, NY (all their cities are named after other cities), a very depressing little town that looked like most everyone had left. We actually went through the downtown, hoping to catch a mid-morning cold drink and maybe donut or something. But, nothing. As we were heading out of town, we noticed the sky turning dark in the diretion we were headed. Just as the sky let toose, e spotted an abandoned kind of picnic pavilion with a "no trespassing" sign. We pulled our bikes in and sat down at picnic tables as it commenced to pour for the next 20 minutes. Then, as fast as it came on, it turned off, and away we went. What luck, and if we had found a cold drink in town we would never have found it.

We continued along our way today, along a spot in the canal system they called the "long level." This is a long level (yeah, the name) section of the canal that didn't need to have any locks to move boats up or down. This was in a state park, so the path was well maintained, but it was mostly fine gravel. This section looks like riding along the Ohio and Erie Canal at home, right down to the stagnant water with algae all along the way. The working canal is not this one, but is a collection of rivers engineered to run together. The modern canal has bridges that act as dams, with locks alongside lifting or lowering barges and boats in a wide river system. We saw those yesterday, but today was just kind of the same, going along the long level almost all the way to Syracuse. We stopped in a small town called Canastota, about lunctime to find one open restaurant, La Bamba, a genuine Mexican restaurant with good Mexican food and even Mexican Cokes.

After filling up on this we were on our way, back along the long level to Syracuse. We rode into downtown, spent a few minutes in Clinton Square where we filled our bottles (finally) and headed north. The trail took us to Onondaga Lake, past the state fairgrounds which are preparing for the fair, along a steel plant still working for the past 140 years, then strangely within minutes we were going through what seemed like a preserve, with no city, industry, or anything. We wound our way through this area and up a hill to the Tru by Hilton to hose down our bikes from the dusty afternoon, then showers, then an adequate pizza dinner before coming back to the hotel for the evening. 72 miles total today.

Our plans for tomorrow are to head towards Rochester, shooting for the eastern suburbs to keep the mileage down. We hope to do about 75 miles tomorrow, and the on towards likely Lockport, on our way to Buffalo and on to Ohio. Best laid plans...