Bicycling New England, the
Erie Canal, & around Lake Ontario 2005
Weedsport to Newark, NY

July 9, 2005
Distance 34.7 Miles

We woke up to another day of threatening skies. We turned on The Weather Channel on the TV and it showed that tropical storm Cindy had finally caught up with us. We went to the office and ate their breakfast, returned to our room, loaded the bicycle and started west. Today we traveled on highway 31 the entire time. It was a road with wide shoulders, and only a few hills. We traveled a short distance when we came to a small park where we saw another structure of the old Erie Canal.

We continued on our way and began to feel moisture against our face. It was not raining but the sky was dark and in about ½ hour we reached Port Byron. Before we passed through town it was raining on us so we took shelter at a gas station/store to get out of the rain and to use restrooms which this store did not have. The rain stopped in a few minutes and so we continued on our way. We traveled another 5 miles and got caught in another rain shower just before we came upon a fruit stand where we stopped and took cover under the fruit stand roof. The rain stopped again and we again went on our way along with some fresh blueberries. Another 4 or 5 miles passed and we again got caught by yet another rain shower. This time we took shelter in a portable toilet (it had a water proof roof) under some trees. We again waited only a short time before the rain stopped and we went on our way again and after another few miles we again had to take shelter from still another rain shower. We stopped under a tree and within a few minutes the rain had stopped and we continued on our way. The road was wet but it was no longer raining. We finally reached Clyde where we stopped at another gas station/store to take a rest. We had barely stopped the bicycle when the sun came out and began drying us off. I took off my shirt and squeezed out a lot of water. We had hot chocolate and pizza for lunch and went on our way in bright sunshine. For most of the rest of the day we rode in sunshine.

We rode into Newark before 1:00 AM and tried to find a place to stay further down the road. We found out that every room up the road was being taken this weekend by a convention of the Mormon's in the next town, so we decided to stay in Newark. We had leftover Pizza so we walked to the grocery store bought some additional food and tonight we ate dinner in our motel room. Hopefully tomorrow will bring dry skies, as we continue our trip following the Erie Canal.