Bicycling New England, the
Erie Canal, & around Lake Ontario 2005
Ivy Lea Ontario to Watertown NY

August 1, 2005
Distance 40.7 Miles

We woke up to a cloud covered sky. However, the sun would break through every so often. We loaded the bicycles, in a light mist, and headed for the bridge that would take us back to the United States. We stopped to buy bottled water because the water at the motel did not taste very good and we had Canadian money left to spend. We continued our ride and reached the bridge on the Canadian side. At the toll booth, we were instructed to use the sidewalk. We were very good and took the bicycles onto the sidewalk and started walking up to the top of the bridge. The bridge sidewalk was narrow. As we approached the suspension portion of the bridge the sidewalk suddenly got narrower. It was necessary for Scott and Barbara to remove her handle bars in order to continue on the bridge sidewalk. It was so narrow that the chain hit Jim's leg on a regular basis. We reached the top of the bridge and started down toward the American side. We crossed over an arched section and reached the last section of the bridge. Guess what, the sidewalk got narrower and our bicycles could no longer get through.

We were forced to unload the bicycles and lift them over the bicycle railing, setting them on the bridge roadway. Scott and Jim then rode the bicycles down to the end of the bridge. At the end of the bridge, Mary Kay and Barbara carried the panniers off the bridge and we loaded them back on the bicycle. We were very thankful that traffic was light. We rode about 5 miles to the next bridge. The next bridge was exactly the same. Off came the handlebars on Barbara's back seat before we started walking the bikes up and over another bridge.

We had a really great view at the top. Once we got to the bottom, the customs guys didn't know what to do with us. Here we were, 4 Caucasian adults with birth certificates, driver's licenses and passports all documenting 4 American citizens. The problem was we were riding bicycles and they told us several times they weren't set up for "pedestrians", which we found rather silly because both bridges had sidewalks. So, we went inside and waited for someone to give us back our birth certificates, licenses and passports. We waited about 20 minutes before a woman came out with our documents, asked up if we bought anything or were carrying anything we had to declare, then asked several questions about our route. This intrigued us so we pursued it with her. We even asked her if she would like to see the map of our route. Turns out, she only wanted to know if our intention was to ride our bikes on the interstate 81. Once we were clear that our only interest was to get to the first exit to get to the next road, she was fine and sent us on our way. We got on the interstate and pedaled up an overpass before we realized our road was below us and was accessible from the road behind the customs office. If only she had told us………..We do not recommend crossing the border on bicycles there.

Once we got onto the right road, we rode up and down hills to our little café. The walls and windows were all crooked, but the tuna melts were pretty good. We got back on the road and went up and down some more hills until Jim and Mary Kay needed to be turned around because they missed a turn. We kept going up and down, into a pretty strong wind. We turned into a farm with a museum sign. While Scott, Jim and Mary Kay talked to the farmer who stopped mowing the lawn to talk about the museum, Barbara sat on the floor and got 20 minutes of great puppy loving from a 6 month old chocolate lab named Molly. Back on the bikes and up and down more hills we went. We came into a little town named Brownville and stopped at a gas station. The special of the day was root beer floats, so we all had one. There was a light rain when we were getting ready to leave. We were trying to figure out how to get back on the route when we saw the lightening. We thought we could wait out a small storm. Well, a guy came over and told us there were huge storms with hail moving in. So, we decided we could stay ahead of the storm. We got out of there pretty quickly. Barbara informed us all that she is afraid of lightening, which was apparent because she and Scott were pedaling really fast. We were going really fast when we passed a group of kids. We were at a stop light facing uphill when the light turned green, Barbara and Scott started pedaling and everything stopped. The back wheel came off of the frame-we may never know how this happened. Barbara and Scott stopped and fixed the bike on the sidewalk. The kids came passed again and we got information about the 3 bike shops in town. We were getting rained on again after the bike was fixed. We were riding as hard as we could to get out of the rain when the rain got progressively worse. By the time we pulled into the hotel, it was pouring. Scott and Jim went in to check in and the woman at the desk told them the bikes would have to stay outside for the night. Well, this just wasn't going on. We propped open the doors and pulled the bikes right on into the lobby. The manager commented on how nice our bikes were. That is when we told her the bikes were staying indoors tonight. Luckily for everyone, she agreed. We had a fantastic dinner at the restaurant, then returned to our rooms to look at the maps and the weather channel. It was a very action packed day.

Submitted by Barbara