Day 83: North Buffalo to Lockport

August 22, 2021

Happy 71 Rachel

“Happy Birthday Rachel,” Duke says as he is pouring us coffee. “Happy Birthday,” Janice says and gives Rachel a birthday card. Making the day special, Patrick periodically throughout the day says “Happy Birthday Rachel.”

We backtrack the route Mike lead us on yesterday to the bridge at the start of the Erie Canalway. From there, we are mostly on bikepaths which is good because there is dense fog.

We reach the Nelson Café for second breakfast and when we start riding again, the fog has lifted. Patrick navigates us through La Salle and onto a bikepath that leads us to Niagara Falls.

In May 1995, Patrick came to America with his bike and a suitcase on a tourist visa. When we decided to marry, we took a trip to Niagara Falls, visiting a friend of his in Canada and through Holland Michigan. Now after 26 years we return on Rachel’s 71st Birthday. We take a few photos and then ride back the 15 miles to the historic bridge. Almost back to the bridge, we see four people with panniers. “Hi fun people” the man says. We stop and talk awhile to find out they are from Boise ID!

Six miles from Lockport we stop at Uncle G’s for ice cream. There is a sign “Happy 31st birthday Mikie” and we find out that the family of Mike is honoring his memory by offering free ice cream, we leave a tip. There is a group of four older men on recumbent bikes who are friendly and we join them. They tell us some history of the locks in Lockport. There are two sets of five locks, the narrower of the two older than the wider locks. In the narrow locks is a traditional freight boat replica that one of the cyclists helped build.

When we reach Lockport we go off the trail, and ride about a mile to the Quality Inn. After cleaning up, we walk to a restaurant and have an excellent birthday dinner of Sushi.