Home safe and sound

8-7-2010

We arrived in Hampton, NH at about 11:30am.  We were greeted by a large group of Don's family, who had signs, balloons, pizza, and champaign.  Quite the nice reception.  We then dipped out wheels into the Atlantic, and said our goodbyes.

I was met at the beach by Rachel Blum, one of my cousins who lives in Grafton, MA.  We walked around the area for a little bit, stopping to pick up a souvenir shirt.  Then we stopped at a bike shop to have them mail it back to Rock Springs for me.  Then it was on to Boston, where we met my Great-Aunt Irene and Hanah (another cousin) for dinner.

We then drove down to Rachel's house, where she put me up for the night.

After coffee and waffles, Harry (Rachel's son) dropped me off at the train station in Grafton, and I proceeded into Boston.  There I hopped onto the Silver Line to Logan Airport, hoping to catch an earlier flight than the 6pm flight I'd purchased.  When I checked in, I found out I had to pay $50 extra for the opportunity to be on standby.  That just didn't seem worth it, so I sat around the airport reading a book until my flight boarded at 5:30.

A 4 and 1/2 hour flight to Denver, and then a 3 hour flight to Portland, and I was back home!  My folks met me at baggage claim (how nice!) and I was in bed shortly there after.

A couple of days with the folks here in Vancouver, a dinner with my Uncle Jerry and Aunt Ann, and I'll be on the road to Rock Springs by Wednesday.

I'll try to fill in the days that I've missed in the coming weeks.  So if you're interested feel free to check back in.  Also if you have any questions about the trip leave a comment or drop me an email.

Niagara Falls to Rochester 88 miles

Rochester - 88 miles
I awoke bright and refreshed after a very late night.  Between struggling to find a hotel room, and a long day of riding the day before, I was still exhausted.  But the ride must go on.

We were out of the motel by 6:45am, and stopped by Burger King on the way out of town for some breakfast.  Then we headed for Lockport where we picked up the Erie Canal trail.  I was pretty excited for this opportunity to ride along the canal, but the trail turned out to be gravel and to be too loose to ride on.  So after 3 miles, we got back on the highway the runs parallel to the canal.

A lock on the Erie Canal in Lockport.

After lunch at a Walmart in Albion, we decided to give the trail another chance.  We knew that we wanted to be on it as we rode through Rochester, so we were hoping that it was better now.  It was a bit better, though still gravel.

Pretty but a poor path.  After we were finished with the trail that evening, we and all our gear was white with dust.

As we rode into Brockport, we discovered that they were having a little celebration.  They were preparing to have a "ducky" race, where people purchased little bath ducks for the charity, and then hundreds of ducks were dumped into the Erie Canal.  Then the first 5 ducks to float through the ending would win a prize, as would the last 5.  Fun stuff.

a Mama duck and her broad scope out the finish line.  They weren't quite sure what to do with all of the people in their home.

Onward we rode, as we neared Rochester we started looking for a motel, but didn't find a reasonable rate until we were almost halfway around the town.  Luckily the Holiday Inn was fantastic and allowed the 5 of us to cram into one room.  They also gave us the key to a conference room to store our bikes in.  All of that in addition to a nice restaurant and a pool/jacuzzi and you couldn't ask for much more.

Lockin' our bikes up in style.

Port Burwell, Ontario to Niagara Falls, NY (2 days - 150 miles)

I'll update this section when I get the chance later.