Niagara Falls
| Day | 7 |
| Date | Friday June 29, 2001 |
| Distance | 68 miles |
| Moving Average Speed | 11.8 mph |
| Left at | 8:45 AM |
| Arrived at | 4:30 PM |
| Overnight in | Amherst, a suburb of Buffalo, NY |
| Latitude | 42 d 59 m 35 s N |
| Longitude | 78 d 44 m 4 s W |
| Cumulative Distance | 611 miles |
More than 600 miles is seven days ... not a bad start if I say so myself. Of course, there's something like 3400 miles to go, so it really is just a tiny dent in the total distance. But it is starting to feel like I'm on my way for real now.
I started the day with the short ride from Lockport to the Canadian border and crossed on the Lewiston-Queenstown bridge to ride down the Niagara Parkway on the Canadian side and see the famous falls. I must say that I cannot remember the last time I saw such a concentration of kitsch and tourist traps in such a short distance. But the falls are quite spectacular, and the Niagara Parkway itself is a very nice ride upstream from the falls. I rode it as far as Fort Erie and then crossed back into the US on the Peace Bridge into Buffalo.
Niagara Falls
An old friend of mine from college, Owen Harrison, is putting me up here in Buffalo. We went into town and watched a minor league baseball game beteen the Buffalo Bisons (Department of Redundancy Department?) and some team called the "Indians". That was a blast, but a very bizarre thing happened around the 8th inning: it started raining bugs. I have no idea where they came from, but all these bugs started pelting us there in the bleachers like some kind of Biblical plague. They were very lethargic, once they landed they didn't take off again, so I suspect they were blown in from somewhere. Quite a few people cleared out of the stands in fear of an impending apocalypse, no doubt. Owen and I are not so timid, and stuck it out through nine innings. It was tied up 4-4 at 10:30 PM and going into extra innings when we left.
I'm going to layover at Owen's place tomorrow.
An overexposed Owen Harrison at the ballgame.
| Day | 8 |
| Date | Saturday June 30, 2001 |
| Layover day |
I spent the day going over my gear to make sure everything was still in order, doing my laundry and buying essentials (Coleman fuel for the stove and spare flashlight bulbs). We still had enough time to drive down to Orchard Park and go through the Pedaling History Bicycle Museum there, a truly fabulous collection of bicycles from the early 19th century to the present. I highly recommend it to any cycling enthusiasts passing through the area.
Chip tries out some new wheels at the bicycle museum.