Day 42: 11th State Line Crossing, Nearby Niagara Falls

(That's right, I didn't feel like straightening. Pretend Jane took it. She said it, not me.)

Alrighty. Sorry for the delay - been occupied with another wedding (I'm in this one, so more time involved) most of this week. (Congratulations, Niki and Ryan!! That means something to at least one person reading this. And Dad, a lot of people at the wedding now know about your insane little trip - they all think it's awesome and impressive and all that! No, I didn't whip out the blog address. No one had paper. Yes, my tenses are screwed up because I'm writing this late Saturday night.) While patience isn't this family's favorite virtue, I'm sure YOU all are patient!

Today's journey: Erie, PA to Hamburg, NY; 78 miles.

Gil's Cliff Notes:
Beautiful crisp fall like day. 53 degrees at 7:00 am start. Dark blue sky and nice white puffy clouds. Rolled through lightly rolling hills with vineyards for most of the day. Lake Erie was on our left side as we pedaled east on RT 5, reached NY state line at 19 mile mark and stopped and took pictures. There was a SAG stop at a light house and a park at mile 41 - this is where Tony took a picture of me and the boats. [Hopefully Dad sent me a picture of him with the boats, or this sentence won't wind up meaning all that much. Oh good, there it is! (You think that I look at the pictures he sends before posting, but I don't. That ended around Kansas.) -Jean]

At 61 miles there was a restaurant and ice cream place and several of us stopped and enjoyed sitting on the deck and eating. [Gil has never NOT enjoyed sitting on the deck and eating. -Jean] I had two cheeseburgers with the works, a bean burrito and large coke. After lunch encountered a few more hills but the wind was more behind us and we made good time the last 20 miles. Arrived at the Comfort Inn in Hamburg at 2:20 PM. A great ride through beautiful countryside.

We were in a parking lot when he called the cell after his ride, but that's not why he gave us fairly brief additional notes. (I think he probably got a bit tired of reporting on the day in 20-mile increments, perhaps also around Kansas. Was also kind of time consuming (for everyone involved). Now we actually have conversations when he calls! Everybody wins, except perhaps those of you who may have liked the mile-by-mile breakdown.)

Today's ride went pretty well, and it was a "spectacularly pretty fall day." About 2,000' of elevation gain. "Otherwise not too much to add to what I sent." Everybody's very excited that they're so close to Boston and seeing the trip through to its conclusion. They were featured in the paper in Erie, which I should really try to find online; on their rest day there (yesterday) a journalist was in the hotel lobby at the same time that he and two others happened to be there. The quotes were accurate, but he laughed that most were attributed incorrectly (well if they all shaved their heads, it would be harder to tell them apart, now wouldn't it?). Tony's picture was printed. [Ok. Mom's looked it up, and Dad apparently got this blog address posted IN THE ARTICLE. I promptly hyperventilated. Thanks, Dad. You have to register or log in with the site to read the article; it's reproduced sans-registration in the post below this one.]

Tomorrow will have a bit more elevation gain - more than 3000'. Also a longer ride - 93 miles. They'll be riding through the finger-lake region of NY, with long, skinny lakes (you may have known what that meant, but I needed more than "finger-lakes"). He'll also be meeting up with his sister Susan and her husband Carl at the hotel tomorrow, as they'll be staying about 45-60 minutes (by CAR, of course) away from their home in Rochester.

To the right: a picture of them at the hotel they either departed or arrived at. Perhaps departed?