Written by Dave

Day 68 – August 4 – 58 Miles,  745 feet climbing (Middle of nowhere Jay’s Motel to Niagara Falls, ON)

From the Sunday morning quiet of Jay’s Motel, with its 5 cars for 24 rooms, to the crazy mob-scene tourism that is Niagara Falls, today was quite a day.

Starting off at Jay’s. I’m not even sure why there is a hotel there. It felt like the owner didn’t really want to run a hotel any longer, it’s miles from everything, there’s no food around, their restaurant is closed and on a busy holiday weekend, less than 1/5 of their rooms were occupied. Our room was decent enough and the guard dogs visiting us every time we opened our door made up for any shortcomings.  I just don’t get why it exists where it does.

As it was Sunday AM, we had minimal traffic leaving the hotel. We rode the most direct route, on probably the busiest possible road but it had fairly light traffic. At least it was light until the church goers started heading to their services. Even then, it was pretty stress-free riding. I might think about a different road had it been Friday afternoon but for us, this morning, it was just about right.

We stopped at a servo for drinks and a bathroom break. Their bathroom was out of order and their water not potable. Servos in Ontario have been much more limited than their US counterparts. I don’t think that they’ve cottoned on to the idea of maximizing customer spend per stop like their American cousins have. Limited services at that stop meant that we had to stop at Tim Horton’s once we reached the bigger town of Welland.

At Tim’s we were greeted by a nice local who wanted to take photos of us and our bikes so that he could post it on Facebook. He’s been following a group riding across Canada and at first he thought we were them. We all are enjoying the reaction we get these days when tell folks that we started in Oregon. Though, most parrot back “Or-e-gahn” – we don’t correct people mostly because they are too astounded processing that we’ve ridden that far to care about how our state name is pronounced.

From Welland we rode along a nice bike path on the Welland River. The river is pretty good sized river for being only 64 miles long in total. On the map it looks like it connects Lakes Erie and Ontario but the bits that extend to the lakes are actually canals. It starts in a wetland near Hamilton, ON and flows into the Niagara River (below the falls).

We had 5 miles to ride once leaving the river and rode straight into the middle of the city of Niagara Falls, ON. Traffic increased pretty quickly but only one car came remotely close to us. We were riding far to the right and an old man decided he didn’t need to wait for oncoming traffic to clear before passing. We were all quite startled. From there on, I rode at the back, in the middle of a lane. We had no further issues and no one even honked.

Nancy’s mapping took us right to the hotel and we scored an early check-in. The older gal cleaning lady was an absolute kick. She wanted to hear all about our trip and was flabbergasted to learn we started in Or-e-gahn. She said she’d think of doing the same thing if her body could be as sexy as Nancy’s – all with a heavy NY accent – it was a funny conversation to take the edge off the last bit of traffic.

After getting clean-up, we headed out to get something to eat and to see the falls. Everything here is overpriced and plasticity, but honestly, what would you expect? We stopped in a Jimmy Buffet themed restaurant called Margaretville. We had ordinary food, a bad beer and the worst service we’ve had on the entire trip. It was so bad that Nancy said “no tip”. I duly obliged and got the stink eye from the waitress. Chris is nicer than me and left what he called the lowest tip he’s left on the entire trip. I kind of wished she would have said something to me but it’s better to just let things go…

Refreshed (sort of), we headed for the falls viewpoint. Niagara and American falls are stunningly beautiful. There were hundreds, if not thousands, of people out looking at them, with the majority not speaking English or French. This is truly an international tourist destination. There are so many “fake” or themed buildings rimming the river, it is hard to think that the falls are not some sort of manmade tourist attraction. With a little concentration, you can just block out all the tourist trap noise and just see the falls as they are – well worth a visit once in our lifetimes. For what it’s worth, we did not go on any of the boats, rides or walks where rain ponchos are required. It was more fun just looking and taking photos of the poncho people.

We were going to spend a rest day here but I’m really glad that we didn’t. I’m sure that our dinner tonight will have a theme and maybe tomorrow’s brekkie too. There’s only so much themed cuisine one can take before nature and an ordinary bowl of oatmeal starts to sound much better.

Tomorrow we ride our last of 9 days in a row. It will be our first of 5 days on the Erie Canal bike path. We are taking a day off at our first campground where we will meet up with Jim (and his family – Jim is an old friend of Chris’s) and also Andrea and Will (Chris’s youngest daughter and husband). Some of the party may head into Niagara Falls for a tourist day. Since we saw the falls and many of the themed buildings today, on our rest day, we will be staying put and relaxing. After this past week and in particular today, we’re looking forward to a break and some birdsong.