76 miles ridden – 2136 feet climbed.

Another great day today with a subtle change of mood. We are all talking about how we feel about these last few days and almost all of us are actively trying to take in as much of what we see, how we feel, what people say, and anything else which helps define this trip. We cycle along comparing memories of days in Oregon, Idaho, Wyoming, and South Dakota when each day was a new adventure with too many more to come for us to think about the end.

The roads in New England are narrow and twisting with trees, shrubs, hedges and lots of houses, in the western states the roads were wide, straight, with nothing around them – no trees (or any vegetation for that matter), no houses, just big wide open spaces that went on forever. Upstate New York is a very attractive place but it isn’t awesome like the West – I like them both for different reasons and feel privileged to have cycled through them.

Some of the towns we cycled through today – Fort Plains, Canajogarie, Fultonville – were both picturesque and a little forlorn as it is clear that before the Interstate came through they had been thriving communities and are now trying very hard to rediscover and reinvent themselves. They look just like small town America in the movies which I think is great and I would like to come back and explore the area much more thoroughly some day.

Anyway, as we climbed up out of Little Falls we saw mist on the hilltops and sure enough eventually we climbed up through it:

We spent most of the morning on Route 5S which is effectively a frontage road for the New York State Thruway and while there is much more traffic on it than on the frontage roads out West there is much more to see and I felt a bit sorry for those on the Thruway speeding through the area and unable to see what was just a few hundred metres from them.

As our tapering down on calorie intake continues the first SAG was at a market specialising in fresh fruit and vegetables but which also had a very good ice cream parlour so I did not have any snacks or biscuits, just a medium cup with Black Cherry and Rum & Raisin ice cream. I think this sacrifice alone cut the SAG calorie intake by 100-125.

Then after passing through Amsterdam and Rotterdam (not very picturesque) we spent some time on the Erie Canal path and went past Lock 8 – the size is something else and it is a 14 foot drop!

The second SAG was in the town of Schenectady. It was right by a drive-thru fast food place called Jumping Jacks which looked like the place in Pulp Fiction where John Travolta dances with Uma Thurman. It was nice but the hot dog probably wasn’t as good as the caterers on a Tarantino film would serve. We were met there by the family of one of our riders, Paul, who provided us with home baked cookies, watermelon, and, served by his Grand-daughter (4 or 5 yrs), lemonade which was great as by then it was getting hot – 30C.

Not long after that we got on a bike path running along the Mohawk River and again that was picturesque with a mix of waterway, swamp, and rushes.

Tomorrow we head across another state line from New York into Vermont. Looks like rain and we have climbing to do. No bother – it is what it is.