The “less hills” Google Maps route is still guiding me north. Normally, I like hills, but when you’re carrying a bunch of gear, your perspective definitely changes. “Less Hills” sounded pretty good so here I was heading further north toward Rutland VT. Hopefully, this wasn’t going to be a big mistake with me going up 10% grades on bumpy “less hills” dirt roads.

I passed into Vermont at Poultney. It was nice to finally be in New England again.

During the day, it just got hotter and hotter and more and more muggy until I finally sweated my way into Rutland accompanied by dark ominous clouds and thunder claps. I pulled into the hostel just as the raindrops were starting to fall.

I’m staying at the Hiker Hostel / Yellow Deli in Rutland. I also stayed here 10 years ago when I was hiking the Appalachian Trail and it’s run by some of the nicest folks you’ll ever meet. I did notice that the thru hikers here smell the same as they did as when I was hiking. Fortunately, I somehow lucked into having my own bunk room. I’ll need a good night’s sleep to tackle the mountains tomorrow.

Country roads, take me home
To the place I belong
– Country Roads by John Denver

After a lovely double zero in Cooperstown visiting Vanessa and her cousins Leane and Tom, It was time to start heading home. Only 287 miles to go. After Mohawk, the Erie Canalway became primarily paved. It was fast and peaceful and beautiful until I had to say goodbye to the bike path in Amsterdam NY.

My path home is the “less hills” route from Google Maps which goes quite a ways north in Vermont. I’m hoping that this would not be a mistake as Google has this awful tendency of treating gravel roads like nice paved roads which results in a planned easy ride becoming an adventure in perseverance and swearing. Well, there’s always pushing the bike and camping by the side of the road if needed. I better get some extra food tomorrow.

The first steep hill in Amsterdam, NY wasn’t a good omen. It was a crazy paved sidewalk that wound through a copse of woods at over 10%. I would have taken a picture or 2 but knew that if I did, there was no way of starting up again. Complaining isn’t peddling so up I went, standing on my pedals in my lowest gear, and toughed it out. This turned out to be the only snag. The rest of the ride was hilly but doable on less traveled country roads.

The end of the ride today was a stealth camp near Ballston Spa NY near Saratoga Springs. Despite a noontime start, I was able to get about 70 miles in so was pretty happy with that. Thank you paved bicycle path.

I had not taken a day off from riding since starting this adventure mid June and my mind and body were ready for a break. Between the heat and the general exhaustion, this trip was starting to take its toll. Leane picked me up in Mohawk and she and Tom welcomed me into their home. Vanessa then made the long long 5 hour drive from home by herself.

Home cooked meals, blueberry picking, and just hanging out with family and my incredible wife were all reminders of what I had been taking for granted back home.

Home, it’s only 287 bicycle miles away now.

I left a bit late this morning, knowing that I had only about 75 miles until the planned meeting time with Vanessa’s cousin Leanne at 4:30p. Unfortunately, during my daily bicycle checkout, I found a broken spike on the rear wheel which was causing some pretty substantial rubbing against the rear brake. With no time to fix, I disconnected the rear brake and lived with the substantial rear wheel wobble the whole day. It was another nearly whole day on the stone dust Canalway, slow but peaceful.

Well, the day started out lovely….. The plan today was to make it out to Syracuse, which was only about 65-70 miles away from Geneva, by catching the Canalway just before it entered a Wilderness area and follow this all the way in. Being relatively short mileage, I was initially taking my time and left late, getting ice cream and generally dawdling. It became a problem when the gpx track, that I pulled from the RideWithGPS library, got sketchier and sketchier, until the trail disappeared completely and I was pushing and dragging my bike through a swamp in the middle of nowhere.

When the trail disappeared completely, I was on my own and I somehow pushed through until I found something resembling a dirt road.

By the time I got out of this swamp, my bike had so much mud caked up into its mechanicals, nothing really worked right. When I got back to the canal, the first priority was swishing the bike around in the water and digging out the mud and dirt the best I could.

Long story short, me and my battered bike limped into Syracuse around 9:30p. Life as a bicycle tourist.

I no doubt deserved my enemies, but I don’t believe I deserved my friends. –Walt Whitman

It’s starting to really hit home that I might actually complete this crazy adventure soon. Today, I headed toward my good friends Chris and Steph whom I hadn’t seen in years. We used to be inseparable and they are amongst the nicest, kindest, and thoughtful people I’ve ever had the privilege to be friends with.

Beautiful roads on this side trip to Geneva and some steep little hills with grades up to 11%. Good training for Vermont. The picture with the crumpled up rear fender shows what happens when you catch a stick in your rear wheel. Weird things happen when you ride across the country and spend enough time on a bicycle.

Having a normal life, sitting on the porch and chatting with friends, listening to the happy sounds of kids playing, all made me looking forward to getting home that much more.

First full day on the Erie Canalway! I have been looking forward to this the whole trip. The Canalway it’s a 360 mile long bicycle trail that spans the entire state of New York so there will be traffic only when crossing roads or on those brief excursions into town or those free places where it diverts to the adjacent streets. Yay! The only thing that has me nervous it’s that 41% of this is unpaved “compacted stone dust”. It turns out that this surface is actually fine and not like gravel at all. There are few of the larger rocks you associate with gravel to bounce over, no sliding around, and it’s not too loud. It’s just a bit slower than actual pavement.

The main objective today was to visit my nice and stay over at her dorm room at the University of Rochester. Just a beautiful day following the Erie Canal.

Today’s ride followed the Lake Erie shoreline nearly the entire day. Just beautiful! This was by far the prettiest section of ride through Ontario. I spent a good deal of time chatting with other folks about adventuring. Hopefully their wanting will turn into doing! Towards the end of the day, I crossed the Peace Bridge and into Buffalo, NY, yay!!!! I’m back in the northeast again and can almost smell that salt water.

And Home
Sings me of sweet things
My life there has it’s own wings
To fly over the mountains
Though I’m standing still

– Home, Karla Bonoff

The current plan is to meet Vanessa and her cousin Liane near Cooperstown NY next weekend. This requires me to start slowing down or possibly take a zero or two, so that’s what I’m doing. I stopped early in Port Dover and hung out at the beach and ate ice cream like a regular person today after only 72 miles, La Dolce Vita. Like most things these days, though, it made me even more homesick for the smell of salt and the sea and of our home on the North Shore of Massachusetts.

After stealth camping last night in a very mosquitoey patch of woods in Michigan and midst the suburban sprawl, I made my way to Lake Saint Clair and the ferry at the Canadian border in Algonac MI. I met an interesting materials scientist on board and we spent the trip discussing niobium and yttrium stabilized zirconia. I can’t say I expected to have that conversation on this trip but you meet all kinds of people when you traveling in slow motion across this country.

At one point, as I was peddling along, I saw a smashed cardboard box with kitchen utensils and small appliances, strewn by the side of the road and all over the road. Thinking somebody might come back at some point and come looking for these, I started gathering up everything and piling them back into the broken box. In fact, when I was just about done, someone did to come back looking for that box. With a hamster cage in the passenger seat of an old beat up Subaru, and his kids wedged between moving boxes filling his backseat, it looked like he had a lot on his mind.

In Ridgetown, after 50 miles on the road, I bought lunch and was just generally faffing about looking for a place to stay when I found a cheap room in someone’s house through Airbnb, sweet!! Booked!! When I plugged the address into Google maps, it said it was another 53 miles away. Crap, it was already 4:30P so how was I going to pull this one off? Without any of other options, off I went. Long story short, if that’s possible at this point, I rolled into St. Thomas and my Airbnb at 8 PM. In the end, everything worked out. No stopping for pictures though.