Passing through Rochester

September 10, 2017

(And I find out I'm "cool as s*** 💩")

So, last night I'm setup in a park pavilion ( with the permission of the police) and since the park closes at 10:00, people are still wandering through. Not families, mind you,but a few teens meeting their friends. I'm in my hammock when two of them pass. One says to the other, "That's cool as s***" to which the other responds, "what is he?" And the first follows up "he's one of those bikers who rides all over the place." I couldn't have said it better myself. My original plan was to stealth camp somewhere in the park. When I rolled in around 3:30, it looked like a car show was just finishing up as many older car models were pulling out of the parking lot. There were families about, and I scouted the edges of the park for stealth opportunities. Even the edges of the park where there were trees I felt were too close to civilization and paths where pedestrians may wander through on the way to a "in-the-woods" rendez-vous. It was Saturday night, after all. So, I sat down in a pavillion and made my dinner and figured I would probably head back out onto the trail later in the evening. Around 5:00, the Albion police roll through the park, and since I'm close by filling up my water bottles, I ask for permission (rather than be "stealth"). No problem, they say, and let me camp. I set up directly in the pavillion, so I would stay completely dry.

There were visitors in the other pavillion (in the background of the picture below) but they cleared out by 10:00pm and I had the park all to myself. Lesson? There's no harm in asking and letting the local police know what you're up to and where you'll be.

Here's my camp for the night in Albion in Burgess park. Police were kind enough to let me stay there. They lock the bathrooms at 10:00 so effective bladder control is the name of the game.

Leaving Albion following another morning of Tim Hortons. A breakfast sandwich and some wifi to load yesterday's photos...

I see Canal traffic today, and there are three boats that could be cruising the canal (not just out for the day). The first passes just before 9:00 and it's a Canal boat. Excited to see some traffic since I'm looking forward to cruising the Great Loop myself someday.

9:40 and 16 miles into my day (hey - it's nearly one quarter of the way complete) I roll through Brockport. There's a nice dock to tie up to if you're a boat (bikes would just sink) and then I continue east for Rochester.

Brockport - love riding past these small canal towns

You can see three ways of transportation - road for cars, smoother crushed limestone path for bikes, and the Canal for boats.

Spencerport (since they were all Canal towns, many of them ended with "port") had a great old tug tied up along the quay. I would have stopped into town but my plans had me grabbing something to eat in Rochester.

This was a great old tug tied up along the quay in Spencerport.

View of the Canal and the towpath from the bow of the tug

I navigated into the outskirts of Rochester, then diverted off the Canal path so I could see the Susan B. Anthony house, Rochester Great Falls, and University of Rochester sculptures. This involved rolling through some urban areas and then Directly though the inner city. Not a problem - just keep your wits about you in traffic. Was able to see the Anthony house and the great falls. The sculpture grounds were roped off and there was a huge arts &a craft fair. I would have paid admission and bought lunch there but I didn't see any food tents. And I couldn't carry a lot more on my bike. So I skipped entering and instead bought a sub at Wegmans for dinner and then wolfed down a Wendy's frosty.

Rochester Great falls (as shot from the Pont de Rennes)

40 miles into the day, and I'm navigating out of Rochester. There were some bike paths I planned to ride on but they were overgrown and didn't even look like one could walk past, much less cycle. So Google Maps to the rescue and got back onto the Canal and through two more towns - Pittsford and Fairport. They bothe have embraced their Canal history and make the best of their location along the water. The foot traffic increased Sunday afternoon as people were out with family.

Pittsford. Great Canal-walk area right along the water. Bikes must walk since there's too much foot traffic

Fairport. Looks like a good number of visiting boats. There were also more marinas along the Canal today than there were yesterday.

I rolled into the Macedon Canal lock park around 3:30 and set up camp. It's now 5:45, I've had dinner, and the sun is setting below the trees starting the cast long shadows across the lock. I hope a boat comes through the lock but I'm not placing any bets on it. Tomorrow should be warmer (about 74) and it's about the mileage I plan to ride to reach the east side of Onandaga Lake.

My campsite at the lock. There weren't a large selection of trees to hang a hammock from, so I had to use my bike on one side and dry-bags on the other side to stabilize the rainfly on the hammock.

Today's ride: 62 miles (100 km)
Total: 133 miles (214 km)

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