Bicycling New England, the
Erie Canal, & around Lake Ontario 2005
Schenectady to Palatine Bridge, NY

July 4, 2005
Distance 45.4 Miles

This morning we again had a good centennial breakfast in the motel including hot Belgian waffles. We headed out around 8:00 AM for the Erie Canal Bicycle Trail. We stopped and looked at a lock 23 along the bicycle trail. As you can see the original canal is almost over grown.

When we reached Amsterdam George and Jane headed north while we continued east. It was time for each of us to continue on our own. We really enjoyed traveling with them the last month. They headed to Burlington and an airplane ride home. We are headed to Buffalo to visit our children and bicycle around Lake Ontario before we head back to the Tri-Cities.

We were going to spend the night in Amsterdam, but after we rode around the city for a while we decided to head east towards Buffalo. We sometimes stayed on the bicycle path and sometimes rode on highway 5S.

We arrived in Palatine Bridge around 1:30 our first stop was lunch at McDonalds and then we rode up the hill to the motel. Our motel is on the north side of the river and we have a beautiful view of the valley.

We tried to decide where we would ride tomorrow, only we made the mistake of turning on the TV and became interested in a western movie, so we enjoyed the afternoon watching TV something we have not done for quite a while. When the movie was over we walked down the hill to the local Pizza Hut for dinner.

Today the temperature was perfect for riding; it was warm, but no rain. We had white fluffy clouds in the morning the first we have seen for a while. Amsterdam used to be famous for their rug making. We saw lots of huge buildings that looked like they were no longer being used. Palatine Bridge was settled by the Germans and is across the river from Canajoharie the town where they make Beech Nut Baby Food. The bad news because of 9-11 the security is so tight that they no longer give tours. We have noticed that New York has implemented a lot more security measures and seems to be more afraid of terrorists then other states we have traveled in.