250 miles on the Erie Canal

Days: 7

Distance: 716.7 km / 445.3 mi
Location: Rochester, NY

Well, we made it through our first week, and now we're taking a well-earned day off at my Aunt and Uncle's place in Rochester, NY. Central New York has been beautiful, and surprisingly much more empty than we expected. Here's some highlights from the New York experience:

The Erie Canal


We've been following the Erie Canal ever since Albany. (Below: Rhiannon and I when we first crossed the canal!) We like this route because it is very flat.

Missy and Mike

At the end of day 5 we were about halfway between Albany and Syracuse, in a very rural area of central New York. We decided to camp by the side of the road, so we knocked on the door of the nearest house to ask for permission to camp on some nearby land.

That's how we met Missy and Mike, and their family, who to our delight invited us into their home and fed us dinner! They also let us camp in a shed in their yard (Above), and join them in their Memorial Day weekend bonfire. This was our first taste of rural America's incredible hospitality. Thank you, Missy and Mike!

Fort Stanwix

Unfortunately I was more interested in devouring my peanut-butter-and-nutela sandwich than in reading the placards, but apparently this fort was important during the American Revolution, or the French Indian War, or both. Anyways, nice place.

Christine's Family

We stayed the night with the family of a friend from MIT. They fed us steak! This was the perfect thing after an 85-mile day. Yum yum.

Brigham Young's Hometown

Turns out Mormonism was born not in Utah, but right here in New York.

Gun Raffle: Are they raffling the tank?

Aunt Kitty and Uncle Sarge

It rained for the last two hours in to Rochester. The rain was actually quite refreshing, although it means we have to clean our bikes now!

Rhiannon continued on this morning. She's going to try going solo until her friend recovers. If you want you can follow her blog at http://bostontoseattle.wordpress.com. She's headed through Ohio and then on to Seattle.

Amelia and I are looking forward to a relaxing day off with Kitty and Sarge. First we're going to clean our clothes, dishes, tent, and bikes. And then we'll do a bit of sightseeing. After that, its onward to Canada!

Goodbye, Massachusetts.

Days: 4
Distance: 322.9 km / 200.6 mi

Location: Albany, NY

Today we made it to New York! Biking across Massachusetts is a nice benchmark, although a small one compared to what we are trying to accomplish.

Here's a brief rundown of the past few days:

Day 2:

We were followed for the first half day out of cambridge by a "posse" of friends, who came with us all the way to a nice ice cream stand at mile 30. The temperatures reached over 90 degrees, so we found frozen lemonade to be quite a refreshing treat!

But the heat began to take its toll on us, and by late evening we were forced to admit we weren't going to make it all the way to Amherst. Some locals in West Brookfield suggested a nearby park for camping. It had cool rock formations, including this granite cave (below) which we slept in!

Day 3:

Another hot one, this time with good hills. I have a newfound respect for the Berkshire Mountains!

We made it to Amherst around 10:30, where we stopped by the coop house of Amelia's friend Jack. Jack gave us a quick campus tour, and showed us the Amherst museum, which has lots of fossils and mineral specimens (are you noticing a theme here?)

After Amherst, we had to climb out of the valley. Yikes! We were aiming to get all the way to Pittsfield, but by late afternoon we were exhausted and had to admit defeat. We draged ourselves into a tiny grocery store in Worthington and asked about camping options. The clerk directed us to a nearby campground with hot showers! Sudenly everything was all better :)

Day 4:

The temperatures finally cooled off, which was a welcome change! Furthermore, we discovered that we had nearly reached the top of the Berkshires. We passed through the highest point near Peru, MA, and from there the whole day was mostly downhill all the way to New York!

Below: resting by a lake on route 143 west of Peru. You can se a rather large hill in the backrground. One of the many.

We arrived in Albany, where we are currently having our first experience with couchsurfing. (For those who don't know, couchsurfing is an online community of people all over the world who invite travellers to stay in their homes for free!) I was a little nervous knocking on the door since I had never tried this before, but the family is extremely welcoming and friendly. They even let me use their computer to update this blog.

There are two oher staying cyclists here, students from Yale university. They are following the same route as us, but had to stop because one got sick. So the other one, Rhiannon, has decided to cotinue on with us tomorrow while her friend recovers. Our numbers are growing!

And our journey coninues...

The journey begins!!!

Days: 1
Distance: 17.0 km / 10.6 mi
Location: Cambridge, MA

Today, at exactly 10:36 am, Amelia and I tagged the Atlantic at Revere Beach in Massachusetts. It was a beautiful, sunny day, if not a little hot. After posing for this photo, we sat in the sand and enjoyed the beach for a while. And then...the journey began!

Of course this first leg of the journey was not very exciting, because our fist waypoint is our coop house in Cambridge, where we are currently frantically packing and preparing for the "real" beginning of the trip. We will leave tomorrow morning and head west through Worcester, then follow route 9. If we can, we'll try to make it all the way to Amherst in the first day.

I can't predict how often I will have internet access, but I will try to update this blog whenever I can. I hope you enjoy the opportunity to follow us on our journey!


Above: Amelia contemplates weather she really wants to go swimming with her bike. You can see Nahant in the background, which is geologically cool because it is a "tombolo".

An Epic Journey

The Plan: A ~3,500 mile bike ride from Revere Beach in Massachusetts to Stinson Beach in California.

The Route: Central New York, North Shore of Lake Erie, Ann Arbor MI, South Bend IN, Omaha NE, Boulder CO, Rocky Mountain National Park, Provo UT, many miles of desert, Carson City NV, South Lake Tahoe CA, Sonoma CA...a final push to the beach!

The dates: May 21st to early August