Day 45: Trash Plate in Geneva

Colin:
We broke camp quickly and headed to the campground office for coffee where the host gave us some helpful advice about reaching geneva.
On the road we benefited from tailwinds for the first time in several days, and moved quickly to Canandaigua. After the better part of a month on the plains, the rolling hills of New York presented a significant challenge.
Compounding this, Carol has dealt with some knee pain for the past few days and today it got worse than it had been before. Fortunately, today's short ride meant she got to ice it and take a rest.
We reached Geneva and left our stuff with our host and found a local dive for garbage plates.
As we dont want to push it, we elected to aim for Syracuse tomorrow rather than Clinton. I was totally fine with this development as it means we can make a stop over at Dinosaur barbecue.

51 miles
3148 miles total

Day 44: Salad from Friendly Neighbors

Carol:
After a delicious breakfast and great conversation at Savory's with Justin, Colin and I hopped back on State Highway 20. Given our late start, we knew we wouldn't make it to Geneva in a day, so we aimed to go as far as we could.
The constant rolling hills reminded me that we were no longer in the Midwest but firmly back in the East Coast.
We had lunch in the Alden town park, and ate cupcakes for dessert. The weather was pleasant with only a few slow headwinds slowing us down. Before I knew it, it was 3:30 and time to find a campground. We decided on Genesee Country Campground and made our way over. Our friendly neighbors took pity on our tuna and rice dinner and gave us entire bag of salad, tomatoes and cucumbers. Later, we'll join them by their fire and roast some Rochester white hot dogs. The kindness of strangers on this trip never ceases to amaze me.

Update: Our neighbors lent us their golf cart to view the sunset over the golf course. 

61 miles
3097 miles total

Day 43: The Finnish Invasion

Colin:
Having had to check into a nicer and more expensive room than our accustomed "cheapest option you have" we had paid a bit more for our room than expected.
As such we went into breakfast determined to get our moneys worth, and much to the chagrin of the staff people refilling the emptied warming trays i can confidently say we succeeded.
We left shortly thereafter and headed northeast along the coast of the lake. Due to some headwinds and our possibly excessive morning meal we werent flying along, but we didnt have to take any breaks for snacks so it all sort of evened out. We had lunch at lake erie state park and soon crossed into new york.
Right at the border there were three other bicycle tourists so we stopped to talk. One was heading east to west along our route with plans to do the northern tier, pacific coast, southern tier and eventually back up the atlantic coast to his home in new jersey. Needless to say, we were duly impressed by his ambition.
The other two were a Finnish brother and sister riding from san francisco to new york. She had joined for the final leg of his three year trip around the world. Again, we felt a bit outdone.
We rode along with them for about 15 miles trading tales from the road until they broke off to find their lodgings and we continued on towards hamburg.
We crossed over the seneca reservation and suddenly we found ourselves in the suburbs of buffalo.
We made our way to our own stop, and a reunion with two of my friends from college. We met my friend justin at his apartment before cleaning up and visiting kira who was unfortunately at the hospital during our visit. She seemed as well as could be expected which is about as positive as that gets.
To let her rest up we went out for two buffalo specialties, buffalo wings and beef on weck while catching up with justin and watching game 6 of the nba finals.

86 miles
3036 miles total

Day 42: Strawberry Season in PA!

Carol:

Waking up to rain, I decided to wait out the drizzle in my sleeping bag, while Colin started to pack up his ThermaRest and clothes. By the time I walked out of the tent, the skies had cleared up and we had breakfast while the rainfly dried.
We stopped in Geneva By the Lake for a snack and had a nice conversation with a woman who had biked across the US twice. On her last tour, she was bitten by a dog, which confirmed my fear of the chasing dogs we've met on the road.
For the last few days, I learned that it was strawberry season because of the many farm signs for fresh strawberries, but we could never find the farmer's stall. Today, our fortunes changed! I was able to buy a quart of local strawberries, which greatly improved our lunch.
Early in the afternoon, we made it into Pennsylvania, our 10th state. With the promise of cheaper accomodations and free breakfast (along with a thunderstorm scheduled to start in 20 minutes), we decided to stay in Erie, rather than push on to North East. I can hardly believe that we're in PA already. With the end of the tour in sight, I reflected on how I've learned to be more comfortable with the unknown and to stay flexible when making decisions.

68 miles
2953 miles total

Day 41: Riding in West Egg

Colin:
An overlarge breakfast from our hotel set us up for a good morning. We passed through a number of really nice lakeside towns and small cities and noted the similarity to any number of coastal towns we have seen.
It was a bit of a slog due to significant winds from the northeast, but between our early start and not needing to stop for snacks we made it into Lakewood City for lunch at a nice park by Lake Erie.
Shortly thereafter we made our way into Cleveland. At this point our progress slowed still further because  we had to navigate the downtown area of the city. This meant frequent turns and similarly frequent stops to check the map.
Having made it through downtown proper, we headed north towards the lake to ride past the Cleveland Browns stadium, science museum, rock and roll hall of fame and the airport. And due to construction we had the whole road to ourselves.
Sadly we did not get to enjoy that, or the subsequent 12 miles of bike path because the wind picked up and wouldnt let us focus on anything else.
We rode through a series of suburbs that immediately conjured thoughts of the Great Gatsby and, shockingly, we two scrubby cyclists were even pulled over by a member of the local police who thought we had run a red light. We thought we had been on the sidewalk, but not worth arguing.
After that brief exchange and promising nicely not to do it again, we hit a Dunkin Donuts for a coffee and to find a place to stay. With warm showers hosts being in short supply we accepted that we would have to continue another 30 miles. Free camping right on the side of the lake in a local park rewarded our efforts. Still, while we covered a lot of ground it feels like we didnt quite get back what we put in.

91 miles
2882 miles total.

Day 40: The Gilded Age

Carol:

Waking up to an orchestra of bull frogs, Colin and I broke camp and hit the road. We found a great bike trail that led us into Bowling Green. Unfortunately, I hadn't clipped one of my panniers in properly, causing one the clips to twist off the rack and suffer a crack. However, with a few duct tape patches, we were on our way. We stopped in Fremont to have lunch at the grounds of the Rutherford B Hayes Presidential Library.
On the North Coast Inland Trail, we met a cyclist who retired 4 years ago and spends his days riding trails while his girlfriend is at work. He and Colin chatted about Team Skye and Chris Froome, while I huffed and puffed to keep pace. The cyclist gave us alternate directions to avoid road work and busy state roads.
Battling headwinds for most of the day, we made it to Huron at 4pm. While we could have made it another 20 miles to Lorain, a quick Google search told us we wouldn't find great accommodations to shelter us from tonight's thunderstorm.
With a shorter day under our belt, we made way to Comfort Inn and a fantastic Italian dinner.

74 miles
2791 miles total

Day 39: Into Maumee Valley

Colin:
Waking up from a great nights sleep on our cots in the monroeville community center we made quick work of breakfast and hit the road at 8:15.
Luckily, it was not nearly so hot as the previous couple of days, staying in the high 70s which made for pleasant riding weather. The wind, on the other hand had swung around and came from the northeast through early afternoon.
This made for slow going to start our day. Four miles in we crossed into Ohio and made our way towards Paulding. Fueled by the bit of coffee and egg sandwich we got there we continue our slog into Defiance. Unfortunately the bikeshop along with seemingly all of the local businesses were closed on Sunday.
We passed by Fort Defiance and turned east to Napoleon before re-crossing the river and finally getting a bit of relief as the wind shifted to the west. It was not enough to give us a tailwind but at least we werent fighting it anymore for the ride into Bowling Green. We made camp south of the city in a little rv campground with a pond for swimming and boating.

86 miles
2717 miles total.