Day 84 Fort Plain, NY

August 8, 2018

Those of you who have been following us from the beginning may notice that we have diverted from our planned route. I, Jeanna, have had serious apprehension about the route that took us south and west from Albany through some very steep hills (mountains) on the way to Erie, PA. The recumbent tandem is just not made for hill climbing. The other members of Team Two Far were very understanding and agreed to a re-route which will take us back to Rome, NY, then north to Lake Ontario, along the shore with a turn south to Buffalo and along Lake Erie to rejoin our planned route.

Today, we took local roads from Albany back to Schenectady, then retraced our route on the Erie Canalway Trail from last Sunday back to Fort Plain. It is a good route, almost all paved, but really lacking services on the trail.

The best part of today was all the touring cyclists we met.

We met Tom and Jerry who are riding from Quebec to New York City. I thought Tom seemed familiar when we started talking and I realized I knew him from his numerous blogs on Crazy Guy on a Bike. It was so much fun to meet him in person after reading so much about his cycling adventures. His traveling companion, Jerry, was even more of a surprise encounter. It turns out he graduated from Eckerd College, a small private college in St. Petersburg, Fl, the year before I did. It is amazing to me the connections that you find when you take the time to talk to people. We had fun trying to think of who we might know in common, but after over 40 years, names were a little hard to remember!

Tom taking our card from Viktoriya. I know him from his Crazy Guy blogs.

Jerry was at Eckerd College the same time Kerry and I were.

Our next encounter was with a tandem couple, Ken and Francie, from Bellingham, WA. We really enjoyed talking to them. They are riding the Erie Canalway on their Co-Motion Equator, the same bike we have at home. They have stayed at some of the same B&B's as we have and said they have been hearing about us.

It was a pleasure meeting another touring tandem couple.

We next stopped and talked with Carl and Dana who are from Little Rock, AR and are headed to New York City. Carl started in St. Paul and Dana joined him in Buffalo. They are traveling with a third friend from Little Rock who started in Portland.

A few miles down the trail, we ran into this guy and said "Hey, you must be with Carl and Dana." Sure enough, this is Mike, who started in Portland, OR on May 17, the same day we set out.

Mike is ready for rain which I hope he never got. We had just a tiny bit of sprinkles about this time, but nothing else. We were comfortably settled in our very nice B&B when the rain came, which is the perfect way to end the day.

Today's ride: 59 miles (95 km)
Total: 3,828 miles (6,161 km)

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