Days 8 and 9 on the Empire State Trail

Day 8 of our New York adventure started where we had left off ,of course, at the Hilton Garden Inn in Pittsford, near Rochester. We had a quick fill up breakfast at the hotel before hitting the road along the trail. We weren't exatly in Pittsford just yet, as it was a bit up the trail. It was a really nice piece of canal, with restaurants, condos, and shops along the water. This was much like Fairport yesterday. The waterfront is really nice - it's no Great Lake, but there are folks riding, walking their dogs, etc. along the waterfront. We circled around the south side of Rochester for a number of miles and it was actually pretty nice. As opposed to riding between Albany and Syracuse, where the route went past the old, old Erie Canal that hasn't been used for years, today we stayed along the working canal, meaning there are boats, for the most part pleasure boats, running up and down the waterway. This keeps the water much clearer, and it's nice to see people using this waterway. At each lock, which in this section are working locks, there are people and some actual services, such as a port-a-potty and maybe even a water spigot. We saw a few people who were camping at these locks, as opposed to the earlier sections where, without any water or toilet facilities, no one would bother camping there. The houses in the Rochester area were either very nice houses, or they seemed to be vacation cabins, with toys and stuff in their yards, along with nice cars for the most part. As we moved away from the Rochester area, the houses weren't as fancy, but it seemed that the area attracted folks who want to be near the water. We rode along, for most of the day on cinder, along the canal-side. We started in the trees, but soon were on a treeless, very sunny track, rolling along. We passed through the towns of Greece and Spencerport, before stopping for a cold drink mid-morning in Brockport, a small town with two bridges across the canal, only one of which was working. The bridges in these towns are really all the same, a set of steel trusses that rise on the four corner columns to let boats pass. Since the canal really doesn't support large boats, really only pleasure boats and barges, the bridges only rise about 10-12 feet. This happens pretty quickly, keeping traffic moving. what was really interesting to see was that when the bridge was in the up position, pedestrians can climb a set of stairs and walk across the bridge in that up position. Since the canal is pretty much a set width, every one of these bridges is virtually the same. I'm sure this meant one big order for bridges, and a lot of standardized parts. But on this day we saw two of them out of commission. One in the up position, but the other one, in Brockport, in the down. This means boats taller than a kayak aren't getting through. I wondered how long they can do this, or if this was just down while we were there, since it seemed that we saw boats all day. We stopped at the next town along the canal, Albion, which seemed like a more neglected town, meaning that most of the business action was up the road nearn the highway, not down here near the canal. We stopped at a bar called "39 Problems," and figured out that one of the 39 problems, at least for the owner, was owning the bar. He was actually pretty funny about it, and our server was a part-time employee who jokingly wanted to be elsewhere. We had a nice lunch hour, and the food was actually pretty good.

On our way again, we rolled along then past Medina, Middleport, Gasport, and then finally Lockport. Lockport had a huge lock that would be like 2 or 3 locks' height. We had to climb a hill along side this giganto-lock, so we felt every foot of it. We decided on a hotel, in this case the Lockport Inn and Suites, which promised a good price and it had good online reviews. However, I should have been clued in as Jerry called to book a room, asked for directions, and couldn't get the lady off the phone. She went on and on about the directions to the hotel. At the hotel the lady at the desk was approximately the age of my father, still working at this family owned hotel. It took quite a while to get the keys (yes, actual keys), and I met a group of people from Ohio who were riding the trail. Well, they were riding, but moving their car between stops in order to carry their luggage. Y'know, everyone has their own way to do this... Well, we got the keys, went in search of our room. In this case, we sprung extra for a fancy room (so we could fit our bikes) and found it quite fancy. There was an odd collection of what I'll call "Precious Moments" statues outside our door. First, when I opened the door, the smell hit me. A combination of some sort of mildew, covered up by a smell that I can only describe as "grandma's house." The gold colored bedspreads didn't fit the beds, and kind of just continued on the floor. The floor was a very, very old carpet, which continued all the way into the bathroom. Knowing this was our choice for the night, we settled in, washed our nasty smelling clothes in the sink, hung them up, and went for a swim in the pool (they did have a nice little pool, like an old fashioned motel).

We rode our bikes back downtown to dine at the Big Ditch Brewery, which was a nice spot with bar food and lots of IPA beers. I therefore ordered a NY Pilsner, as I don't like IPAs. Of course, the Pilsner tasted like an IPA, at I'm sure that's all they serve now. After dinner, we headed back to the odd smelling room and went to bed. Morning time, we went down to a local cafe for a very nice breakfast. It was classic small town place, and I didn't see a woman in the place, except for the waitresses, who of course were nice. This was the men's gossip spot in town. We headed off towards Buffalo, our short target for the evening. We are taking a short day, staying at Jerry's niece-in-law's condo in downtown. After a good morning of riding along the canal, you could tell we were getting closer as the suburban surroundings turned a bit more industrial. We rolled into Buffalo until we had to take a detour, where we found a number of Buffalo police, who were blocking the road in anticipation of the Puerto Rican pride parade being held in town today. Clued into this by Jerry's niece, who said her condo lies along the parage route, we rode up the road towards downtown.

We found the condo building, a high rise that contains the Embassy Suites, offices, and condominiums. We showered, threw our clothes into a real washer and dryer, and set out for the parade. We went to Niagara Square, where we scored some great food at a Cuban grill stand. Eating until we hurt, we wandered around a bit, stopped at the New Era corporate store, withouth buying anything, and headed back to the condo. With some time to spare, I thought I would catch up on a couple of day's worth of writing while Jerry watches The Holy Grail on Netflix. Since we have all but finished the Empire State Trail, we head out tomorrow along Lake Erie towards home. We are hoping to stop somehwere tomorrow short of Erie, PA, perhaps Ashtabula the night after, and then hopefully back to Lakewood the day after. We'll see how well this plan is executed in the coming days.