Written by Dave

Day 69 – August 5 – 61 Miles,  730 feet climbing (Niagara Falls, ON to Red Rock Pond RV Park, near Albion, NY)

We were up early, skipped brekkie and dashed to the USA border trying to beat the hoards of potential crossers. There were two queues for cars. We should have tried the passenger queue but instead picked the slower of two passenger car tracks. And by slower, I’m talking less than half the speed of the other queue. When we finally reached the customs officer and he asked me if I had anything to declare. It was I could do not to say “well, I declare that your are slow, way slow”. But, you probably know this, I kept my mouth shut except for “yes sir” and “no sir”. Nancy was pleased by my discretion.

The ride on the Canadian side to the border crossing was more full-on Disney Land. Just about every major food or hotel outlet had a presence. And by presence, I mean, a building with some form of King Kong (or similar creature) statue hanging off the building. Everyone was competing for the punter dollar. There were very few people about, which was a complete contrast to yesterday.

On the USA side, in the town of Niagara Falls, it was a completely different story. The first couple blocks were sort of tired touristy, and then the city proper started. We stopped at a little cafe on the USA side for brekkie and noticed that we could sort of see American Falls from our outside table. We decided to ride down to have a look and ended up right at the top of American Falls where it goes over the cliff. “They” are correct in saying that the view of Niagara Falls is better from the Canadian side but the impact of being right at the top of American Falls was very dramatic. It certainly answered Chris’s question as to whether you could survive going over the falls in a barrell – the answer is no! It was great being at the falls before hordes of people turned up.

Beyond the 2 blocks of touristic buildings, Niagara Falls, NY seemed like a pretty worn down city. Or at least the part we routed through. It was by now 8AM on Monday morning and there were no people on the street, just the odd guy working on his car, nothing else. Quite a few of the houses seemed to be boarded up and there was a fair amount of glass in the bike lane. We were happy to exit the city area.

After about 15 miles we reached the start of the Erie Canal trail. The first 3 miles were sealed, the rest of the day it was crushed limestone. The trail is the actual canal tow path where they once had horses and oxen pulling barges. It was more fun riding the path than previous paths on this trip, in large part because the canal was a constant presence on our right. And there is a fair amount going on that keeps you entertained – boats, locks, small towns, bridges to go around/over/under. We didn’t see many riders throughout our time on the path. We expected the path to be busier in that respect, perhaps it will get busier nearer the bigger towns and cities. More on the canal and its history later, we just started learning about it today.

We eventually made it to Albion and just past where we met up with Jim, Kayrl and Jacob (Chris’s long-time friends) and Andrea and Will (Chris’s daughter and son-in-law). Jim has been sag for a couple of Chris’s previous bike tours. He likes to cook and roasts a mean coffee. Chris has been talking about what a great sag Jim was all trip and if tonight was any indication, he has not been exaggerating. Jim and Kayrl put on a great spread for dinner tonight – pulled pork, slaw and corn on the cob. Plus they gave us some hints of tomorrow’s fare and more treats are coming. Perhaps the only thing that didn’t live up to the hype, if that’s even fair, would be that Jim greeted Chris warmly but it took him a good 10 minutes to offer a beer. Chris had promised “Jim, with beer in hand”. I’m putting this one down to Chris overselling, rather than Jim under delivering.

Anyway, it’s nice to have visitors again and great that tomorrow we don’t have to ride anywhere. With our visitor’s two cars, I’m sure there will be offers to head out and about. The jury is still out on us staying put and doing almost nothing. Time will tell.