Day 47 - Flying Through New York

Today we had a 75 miler that we flew through.  My legs are getting stronger and I am carrying less weight.  Averaged about 15.1 mph which is well above my normal speed.  We had a tailwind, some uphills and some great downhills.

We stayed in Little Falls, NY.  It used to be a huge town with all kinds of manufacturing.  For example it use to be the world's largest manufacturer of bicycles - all done under the Montgomery Ward name.  But alas all the industry has left and the town is but a shell.  The downtown is all vacant stores.  There is a bar of course and you could get a draft beer for a buck.  Had to try a couple of course.

We stayed in the best hotel in town - the Knights Inn.  Oh it's the only hotel in the town.  But the people were great and they sponsored a wine/beer reception before dinner.  First hotel to do this on the trip.  Good buffet dinner that was well balanced.

We headed off to bed only to be woken up by the freight train that seemed to run right though our room.  I assumed that once it got to midnight the trains would stop and we could get some sleep.  Unfortunately the freight trains ran through the village ever 30 minutes.  And because there was a street the trains crossed right next to the hotel they had to blow their whistle.  This went on all night.

In any case we woke up (from our restless night) to a great day.  Perfect temperatures and winds at our back.  We headed out of town and I was able to capture the town in all its glory.

The town is also on the Erie Canal and has a lock that apparently is one of the biggest locks in the world relative to the height it has to raise a boat to the next level of the canal.

I was told it took 30 years to build the canal.  It was all done by hand in the 1800's.  Look at the granite walls they had to chisel through to create this waterway.

Once we were out of town we had about a 10-14 mile hill to climb.  Nothing better than a hill climb at 6:30 in the morning.  Ug.  But we got some great shots of the valley below once we go on top.

What goes up - goes down so we had a great downhill that we flew down.  Here is a shot just before we headed down.

We are getting close to home, close to New England.   you can see the difference in the scenery as we get closer to Vermont.

Tomorrow is our last day in New York and we should cross into Vermont midmorning.  Looking forward to the next state.  Not looking forward to the hills.  If I remember correctly the next 3 days of riding (about 210 miles) contain about 10% of all the climbing for the entire trip.    Pretty close to what we did at the beginning of the ride. The difference though is that the climbs out West were tall and long. Here I think that in Vermont and NH we are in for a lot of medium size rolling hills - and lots of them.

So three more days and 210 miles to the end of my journey.

Onto Brattleboro....