once again, early morning rise, but this time at our hosts house. you know, it's a bit of a check when you wake up in the middle of the night to pee, walk out into the corridor, and there is a mammoth german shepard lying across the entire width of the hall. one does take a small deep breath (and protects vital organs) as one steps over the beast. packing is done and goodbys are given as we head off into the sunrise to find the canal path.
another beautiful morning in paradise. i think i've said that almost every morning of this trip; i remain incredibly lucky with the weather. we're on gravel fines and dirt trail again. the local fleet feet runners our out en mass this morning, we say 'good morning' to a hell of a lot of people. water coolers are located at every road crossing. after awhile, the trail becomes all gravel and a little deeper, like they recently laid a new course down. i have to keep reminding myself that time is not important, because this gravel slows us down and makes us work harder.
looking for breakfast, there's not much open. we ride into the small town of canastota where our host had told us of a place, but everything is closed on sunday morning. paul does start a conversation with a man who's walking on the street. his voice full of cigaretts and alchohol. he provides us with some history of the town and the canal, as well as some options for eating.
interesting thing about this area is that, unlike on the high-line in montana where the towns are space 6-8 mi apart, here they seem to be only 3 miles or so. it seems odd to have towns so close together. there are times when there'll be larger spaces between towns. i've almost forgotten that where i grew up, there were no spaces between towns. chittenango, canastota, oneida, rome, utica, frankfort, ilion, mohawk, herkimer, and little falls; we roll right through.
we join back with the barge canal, the third erie canal, and reach rome. rome is on the portage between the mohawk river, coming from the east and the hudson river, and onieda lake which feeds into lake ontario. fort stanwikx was built here in the 1750's to hold the wilderness and the entrance to the mohawk valley. a full size replica of the fort stands on it's original location. pretty cool. this fort features in one of my favorite books, 'drums along the mohawk'.
along the canal, we see great blue herons, kingfishers, and what paul is thinking are green herons.
evening brings us to our destination: little falls. we stop at the marina and for $10 they let us camp for in the grass and give us a key to the main office building which has bathrooms, showers, seating and tv, and wi-fi. in case of rain, we can go up in the porch or inside. very nice. the manager even drives us a mile into town to an italian restaurant. we eat and walk back, getting ice cream in a recently restored mill between the canal and the river. we have tea inside the office and then settle down for the night.
on monday, we have a short ride, 60 mi, into schenectady.
Crossing the new york thruway brings back memories. i was actually arrested in upstate new york on the thruway back in the summer of 1974. for hitchhiking. the police told us we could either spend the night in jail and probably pay court costs or pay a $5 bail and leave town. since we were from out of state, they couldn't come get us for skipping bail. i figure i'm still wanted on bail skipping.
we stay with a guy who is, how did paul put it, 'on the spectrum'. i think that translates into being in need of help. but it's a dry place, even if it's a kind of messy apartment, cluttered with collections of empty salsa jars, bags full of recycle jars and cans, bicycle parts, and star trek paraphenalia. it's especially appreciated during the middle of the night as i listen to the rain coming down. we're up and gone at 6:00 in the morning.
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