Salem, Massachusetts: 10 miles

Just so everyone knows. . .we made it to Salem yesterday. We took the ferry from Long Wharf in Boston.  It was about a one hour ride. Not surprising Sharon had some seasickness, but not bad. The views were nice. 

The total miles for our trip was over 3800. We carried a first aid bag and did not need to open it!  People have been asking what was the best part.  Meeting many very nice people! We were surprised that we enjoyed North Dakota as one of the highlights.  We have lots of stories but we will try not to wear out listening ears.  We certainly watch the direction of the wind more than we used to.  We will take our bikes to Salem Cyclery today and they will ship them home for us.

Thank you for following along.  Especially thank you for the blog comments, emails, phone calls and prayer support.

We fly home Monday.

Day 77: Boston

We played tourists!

Day 76: Amherst to Boston, MA. 58 miles.

We had ongoing hills for most of the day.  Our goal today was Worcester which is within the commuter trains for Boston.  Many people told us the traffic is very bad and a lot of detours because of road construction from there to Boston.  The commuter train let bikes on during nonrush hour.  It was a smooth trip into Boston. We went through the town of Framingham (famous for the heart study that identified cardiac risk factors). The subway we needed did not accept bikes so we rode to our destination. Boston has bike lanes but still takes lots of concentration for safe biking.

The B&B where we are staying is very nice. It is walking distance to Fenway park.  We called today and they had 2 nights available. The kitchen was full of goodies to "help ourselves (see pix). We celebrated with a Thai dinner.

We will sleep in tomorrow and see the town on foot.  The bikes are safe in the B&B garage. 

So our big days of riding are complete. It has been a great trip with many blessings.  We fly home on Monday.  When we go to Salem in a few days we will retrieve the bikes.  We have arranged for a bike store to box them and ship them back to Oregon.

Day 75: Dalton to Amherst, MA. 54 miles.

We started at 6 am as usual. The hills started immediately and it was cool and slightly foggy. Traffic was light. It is very pretty in the Berkshires.  We found a small quirky cafe for breakfast. The menu did not have prices which can be concerning.  We had french toast (Ron) & 2 eggs/toast with 2 coffees. The total was $6.73!  The conversation was good also.

We had more hills and stopped at a couple more country stores.  We knew our day was slated to be short so we were in no hurry.

When we arrived in Northampton we were at about 35 miles. We had planned to stay there but it was a busy downtown and we decided to keep riding. There was a bike trail that would take us directly to Amherst. We asked a man in town how to access the bike path.  After riding about 5 miles as the man had told us we asked a rider we met. We had been going in the wrong direction!  The young man, Matt, led us back to were we needed to be.  So our mileage ended up about 9 miles more than expected. It was a good bike path at least. We gave our blog address to Matt, so if he reads this. . .THANK YOU!

We were given suggestions on where to stay and we are in a nice Howard Johnson that was very reasonably priced.

Day 74: Castleton, NY to Dalton, Massachusetts. 36 miles

We left NY behind today. We will not miss it. Riding in NY was difficult because of poor roads and more cities. The 4 flats in 2 days reflected the road conditions. Ron had not had a flat since early in our trip.

The day was rainy and the included many Berkshire hills. At the NY/MA border we climbed a 2 1/2 mile hill.

We have planned the rest of our travel days. We will try to be conservative in mileage so we end successfully.  As planned we will 2+ days in the Boston area and 2+ days in Salem.

Tomorrow we will aim for Northampton or Amherst.  More hills and rain expected.

Day 73: Amsterdam, NY to Castleton, NY. 49 miles.

We started out missing our route and went uphill about 1/2 mile until finding out the route was downhill where we came from.
The ride went fairly well considering we went through 2 large towns:  Schenactady and Albany.  Remember our tube problems. . We were driving through a neighborhood and Sharon noticed a Trek bicycle shop.  We were able to get a supply of the tubes we prefer and trust.

We got the chance to use a tube at 40 miles when Ron's back tire went "pop" again.
Plus it started to rain just then.  The rain continued. It was not cold but sultry. Wet roads with hills made us feel not very safe so we quit earlier than we expected.

So we will reach Massachusetts tomorrow. We hope to get near Northampton but that is about 80 miles so we doubt our success.  Lodging is spread out so it will be a challenge.  We got help from one of the men in the bike shop and I called a bicyclist we had met who started in MA so I feel better about our route through MA.  We are thankful for all the support we get!

Day 72: Utica to Amsterdam, NY. 62 miles.

This was one of "those" days. The kind you know you will have but you don't want.  It was raining when we started at 6:15. Then less than a milr Ron had a flat tire. After getting that fixed we went only 2 blocks and another flat on the same back tire.  Our early start was gone.

The rest of the ride went fine. It sprinkled some but no heavy rain. There were hills but manageable.  The scenery was very green and plush (still looks alot like OR).

We called the bike shop to be sure they were open and had the tubes we needed. He said he had one nut would look to see if ne had any others.

As we were riding across a not bike friendly bridge to get into town. . .Ron had another flat on the same tire!  We checked into the hotel and went to the bike shop for the one tube and more patches. He said the kind of tube we need are only for "upper end bikes" and he does not sell many. There is a reason his bike shop is in his house (see pix).

So we will leave with 2 new tubes and two patched. The tube on Ron's bike is patched because after 3 flats we did not trust the other tubes.

Tomorrow we will be near the NY/MA border. We do not have a firm route from there so we will need your prayers that we can figure it out.

Day 71: Rest day in Utica, NY.

Not much to report.  When we woke up it was raining.  It did not last long.  Ron got his money's worth at the barber shop.  He is getting ready to be back in "the real world".  All is well. . .a few tylenol a day keep the peddles going!  We had leftovers from last night for lunch and are going back to the same Italian restaurant for dinner tonight. We will share an entree.

Day 70: Balwinsville to Utica, NY. 65 miles.

The ride today was uneventful. The farming in northern NY is a much smaller scale than the midwest states we rode through.  There is some interesting architecture but we would not make much progress if I stopped to take pictures of them all.

We are not fans of riding in cities. Utica will NOT win any bicycle friendly awards.  We went to a bike shop (for more tubes).  The streets are in poor condition and lots of traffic with no thought for bicycle lanes. The bike shop was the most cluttered place you could imagine. It is a good thing we called ahead and told them the size of tube we needed.  It took them a long time to figure out if they had them.

Twice today Ron was served more food than he could eat.  We went to a large Italian steak house "Delmonico's". It was very busy and very good (& walking distance from our hotel).

It has been 11 days since our last day off in Labash, Indiana.  Since then we have peddled over 750 miles.  We both felt the need to sleep in and rest. We are taking a rest day tomorrow to prepare for the last week of riding. Eastern NY has some hills that we are out of the habit of climbing.

Day 69: Rochester to Baldwinsville, NY. 76 miles.

We were on the road early. We wanted to take advantage of the cool weather and relatively flat route.  We were finished by 1:30 including two meal stops. Sharon had another flat tire (back) just as we were coming into town.

Our hotel is right by Erie canal lock #24, the Seneca River dam and the small downtown.  Very convenient. Sharon got a haircut. (She was trying to wait until she could get home to Pam, but could not!)

We hoped to go through an  Amish community because they have great food. All we saw was the sign on the road to get our hopes up. We did have some great tomatoes from the roadside stand. We also bought a small berry pie that we will eat sometime tomorrow when we get a scoop of ice cream.  We tasted elderberries which was one of the pie choices, somewhat bitter so we went with a known variety.

We ate at a small diner in town. We put some in the refrig for snacks tomorrow.  Utica, NY is tomorrows destination.

Day 68: Mediva to Rochester, NY. 54 miles

We got a late start (7:15) because we wanted to enjoy the B&B breakfast. Then 1 block later Sharon had a flat tire. We discovered the nut on the valve stem had been left inside the tire by the young man at the bike shop who put my new tire on a few days ago. The tire has a little damage from it but hopefully will not need replacing.

We stopped at a bike shop at 25 miles and got an extra tire and another tube. Some of the towns we are going through have a lot of historic buildings and still many are right on the Erie canal. We got off route once but recovered without needing to backtrack.

It got hot and was over 90 by the time we stopped at 2 pm. We did have lunch from a food trailer: meat, fries and coleslaw all in one sandwich. He said it originated in Pennsylvania when the workers needed to eat in a hurry.

We made our flight reservations to return on Aug. 6.  That is over 3 weeks earlier than our original.  We allowed several days to explore Salem and Boston.

Day 67: Hamburg, NY to Medina, NY. 52 miles.

Our goal today was to get around Buffalo and onto our NY Bicycle Route 5 (which so far is following Hwy 31.)  Our plan to take a straight shot up on Sunday morning worked great. We went right by the stadium home of the NY Buffalo NFL. The traffic was very low volume.

We had a second breakfast in Lockport.  We asked a policeman where to eat and he directed us to a unique diner. As usual several patrons were interested in learning about our trip. It is hard to be subtle in bicycle clothes.

Lockport was our first peak at the Erie Canal. There is a nonpaved bicycle trail along side the canal. Some riders we met said it was very dusty.  We will stay on the road route.

We stopped before noon since we found a nice town with a great B&B within walking distance to downtown. Because it is Sunday nothing but 2 restaurants is open.  We took the time to make a tentative schedule for the rest of the trip.  We should be starting into Massachusett by the weekend.

By the way, a few days ago a woman commented on my accent! 

Tomorrow we should get east of Rochester.