The Blustery Day

27 June 2012

Stats for the day:

Depart St. Johnsville, NY 8:00 a.m., arrive Verona Beach State Park, NY 6:40 p.m.

Trip mileage – 435.5 miles

Today’s mileage – 68.36 miles

Time on bike –5:57:03

Average Speed – 11.4 mph

Max speed – 28.5 mph

After an enjoyable day off, we were back on the bike headed west.  Being presented with a sunny day and a blue sky peppered with cotton ball clouds, we felt confident we could make the mileage easily.  But as the day progressed, a West wind picked up and became gale force by the end of the day.  We can attest to how tiring it is to pedal into a head wind for hours on end.

There was a nice surprise awaiting us along the trail this morning, we traveled right next to Lock 17, and it had a wonderful little viewing area there.  We stopped and took some pictures, and yes, Bottle was included.  The Locks are amazing engineering feats, and we hope to get to see one operate before we leave the Canal Trail.

The trail treated us well, with good surfacing and not too much of surface roads.  Our first destination was a bike shop in Little Falls to get the rear wheel spokes repaired/replaced.  Well, imagine our chagrin when we arrived and they were closed because it was Wednesday.  Oh well, a check of the phone brought up a shop in Utica, our next town along the Trail, so off we went.

In a bit over an hour, we were at Welch’s Bike Shop in Utica, chilling outside in a chair waiting as they worked on our wheel.  They were very gracious and did a good job of it, but it took about two and a half hours to do.  Rick was feeling a bit stressed by the fact that we still had thirty or more miles to go to get to Verona Beach SP.  After a few breathing exercises and a good hug, he was back to “enjoying the journey” so we tacked off into the wind to find safe harbor down the road.

After a bit of round-about biking, we made it back to the trail and enjoyed the scenic wonderland of dappled sunlight through rustling tree branches and the pitter patter of tiny bunny paws as the scampered off the trial.  We got to see a fairly large coyote, or coydog whichever they have around these parts, sauntering down the path.  I had to yell at him to get him to run off into the brush so we could pass without spooking him too much.  It was bigger than I thought it would be.

There are fairly long stretches of the Canal Trail that are not completed yet, and as a result you end up on surface roads.  In our case today, we followed State Bicycle Route 5, and it was a divided road with a posted speed limit of 55, which actually means 65 or better.  We sure were glad to get off of that road.  The last four miles or so to the State Park were quiet County roads, and we arrived safely but tired.  The wind was blowing so hard off the lake that we had to re-orient the tent so the wind blew through it, instead of onto the side, which was collapsing the tent.

 

For both of us, the highlight of the day came when we sat down to dinner at a lakeside restaurant called Gary’s.  We had a wonderful meal and enjoyed watching the suns last flames of the day sink below the horizon, leaving the sky bathed in the last embers of a summer campfire, until even they had to give up and the night embraced everything.  We look forward to a nice quiet night of restful sleep, and dream of tomorrow without heavy winds.