Transcontinental bicycle tour

Sunday, August 27, Ottawa to Cornwall

Doris fed us a big breakfast and packed us a sizable lunch as well. She also gave us nice little maple leaf souvenir pins. We backtracked a ways, then headed southeast. Saw all the depressing close-spaced homes in Barrhaven. On to Manotick, a wonderful vacation town on the water. We crossed the Rideau river there.

We started out late, but it was flat country and we made reasonable time. Neither of us used granny gears, and we rode together all day. The side roads were mostly better quality and always quieter than the few miles we did on the main roads.

South of Manotick, I noticed a house called Kelly’s Landing. Just beyond was a cemetery, in which, just quickly riding past, I saw eight stones marked Kelly. Jacky pointed out that many of the stones were for several people. A little further on, we crossed Kelly lane.

We saw the same thing later at Gallagherville, south of Chesterville. Guess what names!

About ten km south of Chesterville, we crossed 45°N latitude yet once again. This time we noticed! One picture looks south, the other north.

We zigged and zagged on the side roads all the way to Cornwall. Ate our lunches at a war memorial in Morewood, with lists of dead soldiers from each world war. There was just a note on Korea, but no names. Off in the corner was the grave of a boy killed in the Boer war, 1902.

We snacked again at Osnabruck Centre. Near Cornwall, we met several cyclists, one of them riding on the left. If it was his objective to slow traffic down, he was certainly succeeding, as drivers tried to figure out how to deal with someone well outside the bounds of convention and good sense.

The Best Western motel looked fancy and expensive, and had lots of customers. We had been spending so much that we felt as if we should be cutting back, so we went across the street to a place that looked cheap and crummy. Right! Interestingly enough, almost no customers, either. It was another example of capital consumption by people who don’t give a damn. For spending the night, however, it was adequate.

Canada and the UK don’t spell everything the same. Examples (Canadian spelling): curb, catalog, maneuver, program, spelled, tire.

Cornwall was a medium size city devoid of charm or interest, probably partly because of the overcast. We walked downtown, found only a tiny Italian restaurant open. Turned it down. Went back out on the highway. Started to eat at a family restaurant in a mall, but the menu was too big and the table was dirty, so we walked out. Went to the Moviola chain café next door and had excellent stir fry chicken, beef fajitas, and dessert. Really good young waitress. Dumped all our Canadian coins on her.

Monday, August 28, to Plattsburgh, New York

11:00 AM, Malone, NY

As we rode out of Cornwall, we saw a large hill right at the shore of the St Lawrence river. It didn’t fit the local geography at all. I finally figured out that it must be excavation and dredge spoils from the Seaway channel.

There was a high cantilever bridge with a bad surface, spanning a wide river with an (empty) lock on the Canadian side. Although it was a substantial body of water, it wasn’t as impressive as one would have expected the St Lawrence seaway to be.

Then we saw the second bridge – a high suspension span over the equally wide second half of the river. There was one ship in its lock, but the lock was well upstream, so there wasn’t much to see.

The bridge swayed and vibrated. It was built in three sections with interlocking fingers that moved and squealed under traffic. Jacky said the load of a single transport truck was enough to move the joint a couple of inches. The spaces between the fingers were wide enough to capture skinny bicycle tires – we walked over them.

Customs and immigration at the border was quick and friendly, a woman who couldn’t decide whether to be officious or interested and curious.

There are good roads here! There’s a wide, paved shoulder almost everywhere. Guardrails are square here, and distances are in miles.

We tried Rooseveltown (sic), about a mile off the main road. In that one mile, every dog in the world came out to chase us. Most of them gave up, but one adopted us, decided we were his friends, and escorted us. There was no breakfast to be had in the town, so back we came. Moomph!

Along the road immediately beyond Rooseveltown is a Mohawk reservation with a commercial strip called Akwasasne that specializes in bingo and tax-free merchandise. Within the previous week, there had been unrest, something to do with tax-free privileges and the Indians’ separate but equal sovereignty association with the US government, and the area was said to have been crawling with state troopers. We had some concern about all this, but it seemed peaceful and quiet when we came through.

We stopped for breakfast. The good ole boys at the next table were speaking English either strongly accented or mixed with French or Mohawk phrases. They were frequently unintelligible. Everything looked sleazy, but the waitress was young, efficient, gave a damn, and that made up for the surroundings.

A man came in on crutches, missing one leg. He was obviously a local, and began chatting up the waitress, who had apparently just graduated in accounting. He offered her a job, she sat down, and they began discussing the details on the spot. I bet she’s not a waitress very long.

The sign in the washroom:

OR?

The country looks flat and fast, but tilt-a-world is in effect. By the time we got to Malone, we’d climbed far enough to see maybe 50 miles to the north. To the south, we’ve seen the silhouettes of the Adirondacks all morning, but we’ll skirt them, rather than climbing them. Pretty country and warmer than Ontario. I saw one tree with flame red leaves.

Malone is a pleasant little town, but not memorable. We stopped at a grocery store and picnicked in the fairgrounds. We changed to Highway 11 here. Many of the trucks that passed us today were from a carnival. The last time I recall seeing a carnival caravan was in Wyoming. How many lifetimes ago was that?

The next stretch to Chateaugay was faster. The road goes about a mile from the high falls of the Chateaugay river. We believe it because of a very deep ravine we crossed. Chateaugay had no tourist information stand, so we stopped at the library. The librarian was very helpful.

West to Ellenburg Depot, where there was a multi-story brick schoolhouse. Boarding school? Too big for the town. We turned onto 190 toward Plattsburgh. Just past the turn and across the bridge, we stopped for a calorie break. A man out mowing his lawn invited us into his back yard where he had a spring. We refilled our water bottles and had a nice long cool drink. “Help yourselves, any time,” he said. Thanks, friend. We didn’t tell him we weren’t likely to get back this way for a long time.

There are sign sequences along the road, in the fashion of the old Burma Shave ads, attacking the proposed nuclear waste dump.

Highway 190 had more trucks, and the shoulder wasn’t as good, but it’s still okay. We rode over a shoulder of the Adirondacks. Dave rode in the 25 miles to Plattsburgh – found a Holiday Inn and claimed the last room ($70!). Met me again at 190 and 374. Downtown Plattsburgh looks as if it might be interesting, but the motel was a little too far out to walk back in, so we didn’t explore it. We ate shrimp and lasagna at the Holiday Inn restaurant and generally zonked out.

Tourist information stands should be staffed by older people with time, interest, and knowledge. Students working a summer job are rarely helpful.

Libraries turn out to be even better than chambers of commerce. Librarians know the area, they tend to be older, wiser, and more interested in things. And they’re professionals in the information business. They frequently have phone books, maps, and other useful things about places beyond the field of interest of the local C of C, which would prefer you spend your money locally. (Frequently we couldn’t buy a road map of an upcoming state until we had actually crossed into it.)

Also, libraries are frequently open in the evening, while tourist information stands usually pack it in at 5:00 PM.

Tuesday, August 29, to Morrisville, Vermont

63.82 miles, 7:52. Maximum 39 mph, rating: 9 Big, but picturesque Map

Dawn was cool and clear, and it clouded over later. There were 30 mph south winds.

Late start. Headwinds riding up the west shore and out on the peninsula to the Grand Isle ferry across Lake Champlain. The ferry was a small craft, only a single deck with no enclosed cabin.

On the boat, we chatted with a retired couple from Minnesota who had moved to North Carolina but live in Vermont in the summer. Two children in California, but they didn’t think they could give up the east. They were taking their Berkeley grandson to Boston to start school at Tufts. While they were out on deck talking up a storm, meeting interesting people (us!), and enjoying life, the kid just sat in the car. Probably a shy, quiet, engineering student. I know about that; give him twenty years to mellow out.

The woman’s 74-year old sister had started off on a bike tour of Russia, but she had only a one-day visa for Poland, and an aircraft problem had ruined the attempt. She’s now back in the US, thoroughly frustrated.

We stopped at a tourist information stand and museum on the island. The bridge is a land bridge. Turned north a few miles inland and got a tailwind. It was clear in Plattsburgh but clouded over and sprinkled on us several times the rest of the day. The side road cutting off from Milton to Fairfax was very hilly. The main road east of Fairfax was much easier, still with some Green Mountain grunts. Again, I didn’t use granny today. I’m starting to feel comfortable climbing out of the saddle, and the hills here are low enough that I can generally top them before running out of steam.

We lunched at Fairfax on stuffed peppers and pie (of course!).

Vermont road signs are bilingual, and good for them!

I frequently have some tune or other playing incessantly in my head while I’m riding. A Beethoven quartet or Mozart’s or Faure’s requiem is fine, but it’s annoying to get stuck on something I detest, such as The Battle of New Orleans! Today’s offering is Rockin’ Robin, with words that go…

All the little birds
on jay bird street

Love to hear your granny gear
Squeak, squeak, squeak!

Another tune that I hate, but can’t get rid of, A Town Without Pity. The words go

…a day without granny…

We saw a suspension footbridge. It looked like an adventure just to walk across, but we didn’t (private property, off the road).

We stopped at Johnson, our original objective, to seek lodging. The librarian was helpful, but there’s no lodging there. We rode on to Hyde Park, where a B&B had advertised. No one home. We saw another B&B, also with no one home.

We found Lepine’s Inn by the Brook B&B at Morrisville in the yellow pages. Very nice farmhouse, room with a private bath. We had to walk two miles back into town to the laundromat and restaurant. We juggled laundry with dinner at Hilary’s restaurant next door. It was pretty good: Guinness, brewed decaf coffee.

Returned after dark on the deserted country road. It was cloudy with occasional light rain. Very peaceful. Our B&B hosts are ex-Californians, farm people from Fresno and other places. He runs a used car lot on the side.

I have developed the Law of Entropic Increase in the Pure Cussedness of Inanimate Nature. To be an application of this law, an observation is required to be strictly true:

A fast downhill doesn’t compensate for a slow uphill.

Tailwinds are less common than headwinds.

Taking the legs of a right triangle, instead of the hypotenuse, can cost up to 40% distance penalty. But taking a hypotenuse instead of the legs can save only a maximum of 30%.

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