Mrs. Brown dropped me off at the Rhinecliff train station and saw me off. Amtrak was only 13 minutes late. The conductor was very helpful rearranging the luggage rack so my bike could fit in it. I removed all the bags and the front wheel. I settled in for my  6-hour train ride. 

  I had a foamer in the seat in front of me. He would mumble to himself and shout the model of the diesel engine of passing trains, “F4!” Of course, I engaged him in conversation. He had bought the 10 ride package that Amtrak was promoting. He was looking forward to his 20-hour train ride to Chicago in coach.

  Mrs. Brown packed me a nice lunch, pack yourself a lunch. The Empire Service has a cafe. The Empire Service serves New York State, not to be confused with the Empire Builder which serves the West. I guess Amtrak ran out of descriptive nouns. The cafe has Dunkin’ Donuts coffee; nothing else is fresh. They will microwave you a hamburger or hotdog and charge you too much for the abomination. The cafe has strange hours. An announcement was made that the cafe would close before the arrival in Albany, and we would be notified when it reopened post Albany. There was a crew change, I guess after the 2-hour and 40-minute ride from Penn Station everyone was exhausted. There was no announcement that the cafe had reopened. I wandered back after Schenectedy. I got a coffee. I struck up a conversation with 3 men at a table in the cafe car. I had seen some guys with bicycles getting on board in Albany.

   Eddie, Bob and Ryan were high school buds who took annual vacations together. They had previously done the C&O and were shooting for 50 miles a day on this trip. When we arrived in Buffalo it was raining so the 3 men from Philly decided to stay at the Hostel Buffalo-Niagara where I had booked a bunk. Their original plan was to bike to a campground 15 miles  east of town on the Canal Trail. We bunked in the same section of the hostel, the hostel was clean but our room was a little stuffy. The hostel had a full kitchen, provided linen and towels, had ping-pong in the basement and bike storage. I thought it was a good deal and JP was a pleasant manager. We ate in the fancy pizzeria next door (thanks, Ryan) which was pretty good and wandered around an empty Buffalo on a rainy Saturday night. The hostel was in the theater district and the theaters were still closed due to Covid.

    I began the bicycle part of my journey on Sunday, July 17th around 9am. I tried to find the start of the trail and settled on a big lawn near the military museum on the Niagara River. 

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The trail was a mix of trail and road and was still being built out on Niagara Street in North Buffalo. It was a pleasant canal-side ride through picturesque Towanda. The ride to Lockport was paved both on and off road with plenty of mileage signs and bathrooms. I had a great sandwich and coffee at the bagel store. I checked out the locks and the small museum.

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  After Lockport the trail goes along the northern side of the canal and you lose the tree shade in the afternoon. The asphalt and bathrooms also disappear. The crushed limestone is pleasant but slower. There were a few mushy sections. I saw a place called Marvins after a few miles and crossed the canal. Some geezers were setting up to play classic rock. I ordered a rootbeer float at Marvins. Riding my bike, eating a rootbeer float on a nice summer afternoon, I realized I was 12 again.

   I made my way to Medina and searched for accommodations. Medina was eerily quiet, except for the piped-in music on the empty streets and some Christians proselytizing in the afternoon heat on Center and Main. There was a 9/11 Memorial  stone next to the closed Information center. I got a little verklempt that this town hundreds of miles away from the events of that day remembered my friends.  

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   I walked into the Hart House looking for someone, the building was empty. I called a local B&B, but no one answered. I called the Hart House and found out it was a contactless check-in. Although it was $140 for a room in The Hart House, I was tired so I took it. The 16’ X 14’ room, minus the bathroom wasn’t a bargain. It was well decorated and the soap smelled great. A storm rolled through around 7 and I was ensconced under the big Schwinn sign above the bed, so that was positive. The people below my window enjoying the mead brewery and singing along after the storm with the piped in music was an added bonus. The town was dead except below my window. The broken ice machine and ear plugs were missed on my first reconnaissance. I had a burrito from the burrito truck in front of the church, $12 for dinner. 54.5 miles for the day.