Wanderlust

Riding along the Erie Canal

May 8, 2007 at 4:35 pm gvblog 1 comment

Lovely readers, there is a lot to catch you up on! This entry will be mostly concerned with life on the road – I spent the last three days riding from Albany (as hard as it was to leave, I did it!) to Syracuse along the Erie Canal towpath. Along the way, there were snapping turtles, stealthy (and not so stealthy) camping, Herkimer diamonds and indescribably beautiful spring days.

Want to know what the greatest thing about towpaths is? No cars. That means that for almost 180 miles, I was on my very own road, taking up the lane to my hearts content. Picture riding through arches of dogwood and birch just beginning to burst into bloom, shiny blue water on both sides, birds calling riotously through the underbrush and flying excitedly ahead of me, painting the sky in flashes of bright yellow and red. Hedgehogs trundle hurriedly into the grass as I pass and I pedal along to the tune of old bluegrass, Yonder Mountain and the Pine Box Boys fiddling away as the miles slip by largely unheeded. I rode 90 miles on Sunday, the most I’ve ever ridden in a day. That night I slept in Verona Beach State Park, which is not yet open for the season. The great thing about campgrounds still being closed is that they’re free!

On Monday morning, though, I slept in until 8, which was not so stealthy. I was walking to the bathroom, which they’d left unlocked, when I saw a man in a golf cart talking to a woman walking her dog. My tent was still up, so I figured that they knew I had camped there. Since they already knew I was there, I decided that I might as well make breakfast, so I got out my stove and proceeded to light it.

Now, my stove is an MSR whisperlight that works with white gas, and it needs to be primed before it goes on. That means that a relatively big flame has to come out when you turn it on. There were two geriatric maintenance men driving around in a golf cart picking up sticks nearby when I did this, and I heard one of them say something involving “woman” and “fire”, presumably into a walkie talkie. A few minutes later, the man I saw originally came driving up and said “you know the campground is closed, right?” and I explained that yes, but I’d ridden 90 miles the day before, gotten in late, and hadn’t known where else to sleep. I assured him I was leaving soon, and after he reassured himself that I wasn’t going to burn down the campground he drove away. Luckily, by the time he came over the flames had died down. He even unlocked the bathroom for me later (which he’d locked after we talked) so I could put my contact lenses in.

I’ve started a new project on the ride, which is the Mile 27 project, in honor of the fact that I’ve been alive 27 years. Every day I’m riding I plan to take a picture of wherever I am at Mile 27. I’ll put them in a Mile 27 photo album so you can check them out.

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