Last night I ordered Chinese from Erie's Golden Wok delivered to the room: Crab Rangoon and the Chef's Special: Four Season--shrimp, chicken, lobster, roast pork w/ broccoli, baby corn, straw mushrooms, snow peas, and Chinese vegetables. Very good, but of course I could not eat it all. I didn't even touch the rice. My fortune cookie: "You find beauty in ordinary things. Do not lose this ability" hit it right on the head. I thought the white paper the fortune was printed on was very beautiful indeed and the font chosen for the message was magnificent. Even the texture of the fortune cookie was beautiful.
I also managed to spend a fortune . . . to wash and dry two loads of clothes at $1.75 a wash and $1.75 dry, plus $1.00 each for two small boxes of detergent. That's a lot of coins to be clean, but I'm glad I did not have to wash out the clothes by hand and drape them about the room per usual.
It is nearly 7 p.m., and I am just getting to the blog. I am in the Clarion Hotel Marina Conference Center in Dunkirk, NY. Dear sistah Sarah is treating me to this stay, and the hotel gave her a great 50% discount on the room. Thank you Sarah! and thank you Clarion Hotel!
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| View from my Clarion Hotel 4th-floor window; marina hasn't yet filled with summer sailors |
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| Another view from my window, this one to the right where there is a public beach |
Got here at 1:30 p.m., but after showering and reading my mail fell into a long nap. Don't know why I was so tired as the ride was not especially difficult. I had a great tailwind and it was sunny and pleasant. I was on PA-5E (Lake Road) for the first 30 miles or so and then entered NY and rode NY-5 Bicycle Route (Lakeshore Drive) for the last 22 miles. Along all of the route in both PA and NY were vast vineyards and I could see Lake Erie most of the time.
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| A Pennsylvania vineyard on the edge of Lake Erie |
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| For awhile I was on the Chautaqua Wine Trail; don't know what the different colored bottles mean |
At one point today I saw a red fox on the other side of the road in the tall grass. It looked like it was starving or had mange or something as it was thin and its tail was nearly furless. Poor thing was so intent on finding something to eat that it paid me no mind. I also crossed a pretty stream and stopped to take a photo. The water was very clear and many large fish (carp?) could be seen all pointing upstream (see below).
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| Stopped to take a photo of this stream and realized that it was full of large fish; the sun is bad but you can see them to the right in this photo |
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| Here are a couple of them directly down from the bridge |
I had a good shoulder, except for about a 2-mile section before I entered NY. But, as soon as I entered NY, the great smooth, wide shoulder reappeared (see below).
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| Pennsylvania road and shoulder vs NY road and shoulder. In all fairness, PA's shoulder was fine for most of the way, too |
The drama for the day was the bug du jour. It stung me on the inside bottom of my lip. My lip was swollen and uncomfortable for awhile but then returned to normal.
I pedaled 35 miles through vineyards and country before coming to a gas station/ convenience store in NY, where I stopped, replenished my water bottles, drank a Gatorade, and had a turkey sandwich on whole wheat. Below is a photo the owner took of me with a big carved eagle that greets all who enter the store.
Shortly after I left the convenience store, I saw a rider approaching from behind. This was another cross-country tourist named Dennis. He'd started in Phoenix, AZ. I'm not sure one could really call him a bicyclist. He was on an enormous recumbent tricycle pulling a Burley trailer, loaded to the hilt. He had tricked the tricycle out with a motor to assist him up hills. He really needed it because he said the tricycle weighed 153 pounds (without him on it) and the Burley was toting 95 pounds! Included in that 95 pounds was a 13-foot sail. He showed me a photo of it on his cell. It was transparent and looked just like a sailboat sail. Dennis said he'd been able to use the sail only in TX where he had a long straight road. Though we had a tailwind, the road today twisted and turned and would not have allowed "sail-biking."
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| Dennis on his tricycle |
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| I'm trying to show you more of Dennis's rig but the shade made for a dark photo |
Dennis and I stood by the side of the road talking for maybe half an hour. He's married to a Korean woman and she is to meet him in Buffalo. His destination is Maine where he has a daughter and grandkids. When I asked about his route, I learned that he'd ridden I-40 for part of the way. Yikes! In OK he picked up old Route 66. He accidentally entered Cleveland just like I did. Pedaling along one minute and the next, wham, there's the skyline and no option but to pedal through the city. We both agreed that Cleveland's roads were the worst we'd encountered.
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| That's the 13-foot sail wrapped in black and his solar charger atop the blue |
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