I know Burlington is a liberal-minded town, but "Red Square"... really.

Ugh...

Looks like the Amish.

Looks like sandstone, very well constructed. It will be there for a while.

Looks like a an early trappeur from Quebec. They were the ones that settled all the land around the St. Lawrence, going back to the 1600s. They got on great with the tribes in the area, and usually had a Native American wife.

That’s what real poverty looks like.

That’s about as bad as it gets.

81 miles is a lot, but it is flat. Your first day of 75 miles in mountainous terrain was pretty extreme, especially with a heavily loaded bike.

Looks very new which is good, but not much better than sleeping in a field. A pit toilet is better than nothing I suppose.

The Great Lakes and parts of the St. Lawrence have some huge tankers and bulk carriers.

Paved shoulder on a 4 lane highway? No way! Usually bikes are not allowed on divided highways at all, per federal highway regulations. I have never seen this before

Research has shown that your body involuntarily responds to vehicles passing you from behind, especially if you can’t hear them approaching. 30 mph is modest, 50 mph is significant, 70 mph can be a serious jolt of adrenaline. The farther you are from the car the less the effect. But a paved shoulder can only get you six feet away when cars are going 70. So your body is sensing danger almost all the time.

No way should that be considered a bike route. Better to find a back road even if it is longer. Clearly this was done by transportation engineers who had never been on a bike. If federal money was used to build the highway, it generally is not allowed at all, so I am very surprised to see this.

I wonder how many visitors they get.

Is this the Mohawks?

Tire patch should work ok. It’s not under high pressure. Back when my family traveled out West in 1967, had to repair air mattresses, but the patches weren’t as good.

If only it worked that way. They put windmills in places where the wind is constantly blowing. I should learn to avoid them.