22-incher, turtles, lunch mate, “shadow,” 2nd battle of oriskany, some dumb luck, roaches

September 7, 2022

I slept until 8:15 and made it just in time to the breakfast room where the only other person there was Mike, the quieter of the two riders I met yesterday. I learned a little more about my Syracuse riding companions, both of whom are from West Virginia.

Mike was a CPA, now retired at 72, and has done a few shorter trips but has a real interest in going on a cross country trip. We talked about bikes and gear, and different traveling styles.

Don is a judge who used to work in a large city, then retired and moved to a smaller town. When the judge in that smaller town retired, Mike learned that the salary for a judge is the same whether you’re seeing a gazillion cases in a year, like he was doing at his previous job, or some occasional cases here and there. He ran, won, and now feels like his job is so easy that he can’t retire quite yet. Don was waiting on Mike to finish eating, after which they took off. They began riding while I was upstairs loading my bike.

Today would be the first day I use the RideWithGPS app for directions (instead of the website). I had created a route on it from Buffalo to Montreal, but wasn’t sure it would be able to separate my riding into individual days, or if I would have to count it all as one long trip. When I learned it was the former I decided to use it instead of the website.

this shows two waterways intersecting, one stacked on top of the other, but not intermingling

you can see how high the water gets because the trees' limbs can't grow

A few miles into the ride I saw a guy walking along the canal toward me with a huge fish, and I watched as he released it into the water. As I was rolling towards him I said, “Nice fish!” He grinned, and replied, “Yeah, a 22-incher!” I thought of Mike, and wished he'd been able to travel with me longer.

near the 22-incher, just east of Syracuse

there were a lot of old bridge supports, the bridges themselves long gone after so many years

At Lenox Basin the trail was closed. I considered heading down the road where the detour indicated, but it had traffic and no shoulder, so I decided to roll my bike around the sign and take my chances on the bike path.

It was several miles before I discovered why: there was a cherrypicker with two men using it to trim limbs. One of them seemed a little put out because they had to stop the chainsaw as I passed, but it might’ve been my imagination. Regardless, I didn’t care much if he was because the alternative would have been a road with no shoulder.

Throughout the day I saw hundreds of turtles sunning on logs along the path. There were anywhere from one to ten on a single log, their necks stiff and extended as if not wanting to miss seeing something important at a parade, or a car accident. If I pulled over: plop, plop, plop…. off they’d slide into the water, usually before I could get my camera up. Most of them were about the size of a large hand, and the larger ones were frequently covered with moss.

they're so... prehistoric, and fascinating

This video is a bit jiggly because I had it zoomed in a lot:

Most were small, but just before Durhamville I passed a larger turtle just off the trail. He looked like he was considering sprinting across the path, then eventually onto the street beyond where the moss is always greener. I decided that was as good a place as any to stop for lunch so I turned my bike around, set up my lawn chair (yes, lawn chair), and the two of us just hung out together while I ate my peanut butter, nutella, and banana chip tortilla wrap.

We sat there in a comfortable silence, neither of us speaking, for about fifteen minutes. He eventually became bored of my company, turned around, and slipped back into the canal without even offering a goodbye.

While I was relaxing in the most comfortable chair ever, a group of cyclists rode past. Later, after I caught up to a couple who had stopped to take a picture (they were really confused because my bike had been pointing the opposite direction when they passed me earlier), I learned that they’re with an organized tour group, CycleTheUSA.com. I looked it up, and found that the 12-day trip costs $3,000 for sag support and hotels.

In Durhamville I took a couple of wrong turns, but now that I’m using the RideWithGPS app it makes a sound, immediately alerting me that I’ve gone off route.

I saw a strange phenomenon, one I hadn’t seen in a long time: a bright light in the sky and a dark shape on the ground beside me, vaguely the same shape as me and my bike. If I remember correctly, it’s called a “shadow,” but I hadn’t seen one in so long that I wasn’t sure that's the correct term.

I considered stopping in Rome for the night, and even looked up a WarmShowers host, but decided to continue on. Maybe I'll camp at the Oriskany Battlefield, which looked like it was a big enough place to hide a tent (at least looking at it on the map).

When I was almost parallel to it on the trail I saw a side path and took it, thinking it might be a back way into the park.

the side path to (hopefully) the Oriskany Battlefield

I pedaled a ways into it and was almost there. It looked promising, but when I stopped ten thousand mosquitoes attacked, swarming all over me. I swatted as many as I could as I grabbed my insect repellant and hosed myself down, but not before I lost about a pint of blood.

Once I had enough bug spray to keep them at bay I was able to look around, and noticed signs everywhere that said “No Trespassing.”

I considered trying to hide my tent, but there wasn’t a great place. The overgrowth was just too thick.

That and the mosquitoes clinched it for me….I backtracked to the trail and continued on towards Oriskany.

In this, the Second Battle of Oriskany, I left defeated, not having taken the field, and with a significant amount of blood loss from the encounter.

The town of Oriskany, as far as I could tell, consisted of a few houses and a convenience store. I stopped for something to drink at the store and there was a couple outside eating ice cream, their bikes parked nearby. We started chatting and I learned their names are Kip and Vickie, both interested in taking a longer tour someday. I droned on about what fun it was, possibly less convincing than I would otherwise be because of the number of mosquito bites I had at the time, but they did accept my contact information.

Vickie and Kip, and my photography managed to capture the Sky Jellyfish in the reflection of the glass

I asked them about a place to camp and was told that it’s only 3-4 miles to the lock campsite. It’s primitive camping, but that’s really all I need. Since the definition of primitive is not only "offering an extremely basic level of comfort," but "relating to an early stage in the evolutionary development of something," it's perfect for me.

Kip made my day when he told me that from here all the way to Albany the trail is almost entirely paved.

Arriving at the lock I looked for a campsite on the trail side, then crossed the canal on a small walkway to see if there were any better camping spots on the other side. The grass wasn't greener so I began my return.

As I was walking back toward the lock, a guy came up to me with my helmet in his hand. He told me I dropped it on the walkway. Apparently, I had put it on the back of my bike and forgotten about it, then rolled away looking for a campsite. It fell off while I was crossing the tiny walkway, and I couldn’t believe that it didn’t fall into the water (or that I didn't hear it fall). The pathway is really narrow..... it's just dumb luck that I still have a helmet.

After my tent was up and my dinner was in front of me on the picnic table, two guys, a woman, and a couple of kids walked past carrying fishing poles and gear. The men briefly stopped to ask the Usual Questions, then went on their way to throw a line in the water. About fifteen minutes later, one of them came over to chat while everyone else continued fishing.

He goes by “Roach.” At first I thought he might be a resident of WeedSport but I learned differently when he added, “My name is Justin but people call me by my last name.” We talked for about half an hour, and I found that he likes riding but hasn’t done it in a long time, although a few years ago he did complete a 62-mile charity ride “for hunger” after raising $2000 while working at one of the local fast food restaurants that helped sponsor it.

“I did it for the free steak,” he admitted.

When I asked if I could take his picture he started to hide his beer and cigarette, then just took a long drag on the smoke and put it out. Really, it wouldn’t be an exemplary picture without at least one of the two.

In the past, I've camped in a park and didn't realize until later that there was a bright lamp nearby that would blaze like the sun onto my tent all night. I tried an experiment this evening: I pitched my tent in a spot so that, hopefully, the lamppost itself would block the light, leaving me in the shadow.

I found out after dark that, unfortunately, it didn't work. The lamppost wasn't wide enough. Worth a try, though.

As some of you may know from my other journals, there’s a specific brain-melting song that plays in my head most of the time when I'm on a bike… an “earworm.” I won’t share it with you for fear that it will infect your brain as well, after which you'd start bleeding out your ears. However, I will pass along the good news that, at least temporarily for this trip, it has been ousted by Led Zeppelin’s Goin’ to California.... although Camptown Ladies has been making an occasional appearance and, less so, Pee Wee Herman singing Deep in the Heart of Texas.

distance: 54.7 miles
elevation: +703 feet
total time: 7:28:16
moving time: 5:13:48
maximum speed: 22.2 mph
average moving speed: 10.4 mph
calories: 2411

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Today's ride: 55 miles (89 km)
Total: 257 miles (414 km)

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