A Little Bit of This and a Little Bit of That . .: 06/18/12

Jeff was supposed to ride from Manhattan to Montauk at the eastern end of Long Island. This was an organized ride that is 151 miles (242 km) long, it had about 3,000 people who signed up. Here the link to that ride: Ride to Montauk . I dropped Jeff off at the Southeast train-station. He met Joe there and they shared a hotel room. They had to be at the starting point at 5 am on Saturday morning. On Friday night they met Katie for dinner, Katie is riding the Montauk ride also. She was on the ride across North America which they did in 2010.

Joe, Katie and Jeff

On Saturday morning when Jeff was riding to the starting point, his bag got caught between the wheel and the fork. It broke couple of spokes and the wheel didn't turn. There was no way of fixing it and even if I went and brought an extra wheel, he would not have been able to catch Joe and Katie. So he came home and I picked him up from the train-station. Joe and Katie did the ride and finished it in about 10-11 hours.

A very disappointed Jeff at the starting point

Since we had our dog/house sitter lined up we decided to go and visit Matt instead. Laura was in Canada with her boyfriend who treated her to her birthday which was on Friday. We took our hybrid bikes with us, hoping that Matt would go for a short ride with us. It takes about 4.5 hours to drive to Utica, but luckily the traffic was light and driving good. We met Matt at his place, made reservations to a hotel and then went in search of the Erie Canal Trail. That thing is harder to find than you'd think. Locals didn't seem to know where it was or how to get to it. Finally Matt was able to find a road that might go there using his internet phone. It seems that Utica does not have access to the Erie Canal Trail, we went to Whitesboro instead.

We rode about 10 miles on Saturday. Went west and found Lock 20 on the Erie Canal. This man who works there was very friendly and talked to us for awhile. We continued on for couple of miles before turning around. Then went couple miles east from where we parked. It was quite warm and we were getting hungry.

Lock 20 @ Erie Canal

Jeff at Lock 20 @ Erie Canal

At Lock 20 @ Erie Canal

Jeff and Matt on the Erie Canal Trail

Erie Canal

Lock 20 @ Erie Canal

Matt at Erie Canal Trail

On the way to the hotel we saw couple of neat cars. Don't know what one of them is supposed to be, probably home made thing. The couple who was in it saw me taking a picture of them and kept waving and smiling. The other car was an old hearse that was changed to a regular car. Those people were waving and giving us thumbs up signs. The signs on both cars had some cycle works logo on them, don't know if it was for motorcycles or bicycles. Maybe that's why they were waving at us, since we had two bikes on the roof.

Our hotel was brand new La Quinta. And not too far from the Turning Stone Casino. We went to the casino and had dinner there at their buffet. It was much better than the buffet at Mohegan Sun in Connecticut. After dinner Jeff and Matt found a Blackjack table while I wondered around the place. Matt did pretty good, came ahead $50. Jeff not so.

Jeff at the hotel. We had a huge hallway which shows behind him

Jeff and Matt at Turning Stone Casino

Jeff and me at Turning Stone Casino

Breakfast at the hotel was really nice, Belgian waffles, eggs, sausage etc. After checking out we went back to Matt's place to get his car and headed to Little Falls. Little Falls seems to be a cute little town right on the Erie Canal. And the canal trail was a lot easier to find than in Utica area. We got on our bikes and headed on the trail. Rode 10 miles again. It was a bit warm and getting to be lunch time and at least Matt was starving. We had lunch at Ann Street Restaurant and Deli. Then went and got ice-cream and walked along the canal to the Hydroelectric Plant and back. After that we said goodby to Matt, who headed back to Utica, with Jeff's hybrid bike. Jeff and I decided to check out the Little Falls Antique Center. Nice little antique store, but we didn't buy anything. After that it was time to head back home. The drive home was pretty uneventful, which is good. We did stop at couple of farm stands between Rip Van Winkle Bridge and the Taconic Parkway.
And Casey was so happy to see us.