Foolish Mansion

 

Lewiston, NY - Leaving Canada was, initially, much easier than entering it. We had better directions and were able to take bike routes and ride a little ferry across the canal (located where a bridge once crossed). The ferry was so small that it took two trips to carry us all over.

 

One day a ship’s captain or a bridge master fell asleep and the ship rammed into the bridge. It was like a train running into a car. No more bridge. Instead of rebuilding the bridge, the town decided to install the ferry. It does not carry cars, just passengers and bicycles. Two men run the ferry, one to drive and one to attach it to the landing, help passengers on and off, etc. When they are not working, the ferry men have a little shed built for them beside the canal. It is a beautiful green spot that is very “out of the way”. I imagine they spend a lot of time in the shed.

 

Once across the canal, we rode down to Niagara Falls. The river, as we approached the falls, began to run faster and faster, its surface broken up into white water by large boulders. In the middle of the river was the rusting hulk of an ancient river barge. Early in the 1900’s, the barge, which had two crew members on board at the time, broke loose from its moorings up river and began to drift towards the falls. In an effort to prevent it from going over, the crew members made holes in the hull, trying to sink her.

 

At nearly the last possible moment, the hull hit bottom and the boat, hung up on the rocks, was stopped, heeled over on its side in the middle of the river just above the falls. All night the men on board waited to either be rescued or to go over the Falls. In the morning a line was somehow secured to the barge and they were rescued. Now the remains of their ersatz coffin lays in the middle of the river, still on its side, black with rust.

 

Also in the middle of the river, just above the falls, is a tiny island. What would be a death trap for men is a haven for birds. There they nest and relax, with wild currents of water swirling all around them.

 

As we came up to the overlook above the Falls, we looked and took pictures and had a grand time. The kids had already seen it but I had not.

 

Afterwards, we tried to find the route back to the cycling trail. This was not so easy. I wound up turned around, at the back of the group, following Joseph. We were surrounded by tourists at an intersection that was so overwhelmed by traffic that policemen were there to direct it. As I started to step off the curb to cross the street, my bike began to fall over. Still on the curb, I reached down to grap it and pull it back up. I felt something pop in my hip and a searing pain shot up the back of my right leg. I let go of the bike and collapsed.

 

Suddenly I found myself surrounded by tourists and policemen, coming to see if I was okay. I didn’t feel okay. I had this horrid pain in my leg and I was scared to death. I have a morbid imagination. I kept thinking “In Canada”, “on bike”, “can’t walk”, “no health insurance”, “hip ruined”, “how will I get home?”

 

After a few minutes of sitting still, with Mary Elizabeth in a complete panic (I was probably contagious), I managed to get to my feet. I found that every few steps my leg would experience a spasm of pain and then just sort of collapse. I also found that it did this only in certain positions, none of which occurred when I was riding a bike.

 

We rode from Niagara to the eastern most bridge and managed to get across it without incident. This bridge was much less crowded than the Peace Bridge in Fort Erie had been.

 

We got off the highway and rode on….slowly. We passed a group of cyclists resting on the other side of a highway we were on. As we rode past they began to clap.

 

At the bottom of a big hill we took a wrong turn and wound up in the tiny town of Lewiston. Here is the last point where the fur traders of long ago were able to take their canoes and traps out of the Niagara River for land portage over the falls. Here is also where the Underground Railroad ended as escaped slaves crossed the river into Canada.

 

In the town of Lewiston, Joseph helped me hobble around the grocery store. After we made our purchases, we went outside to find a motorcycle nomad bragging to Mary Elizabeth and Jennifer about his many journeys around the US. When he saw me and Joseph approaching, he greeted us briefly and hurriedly rode off into the sunset.

 

As we were eating our dinner in a local park, an old man approached us and offered to let us camp in his yard that night. We gratefully took him up on his offer.

 

 

While the kids went with Evan to see Niagara Falls, I swore off bicycles for the day.

 

Suzette and I spent the day traveling a serendipitous route around the local countryside…by car. It was Canada Day, but the celebrations, at least where we were, were subdued, not to say invisible.

 

Our first stop was at a wine tasting. The winery was beautifully picturesque and very busy. We were given two wines to taste and !surprise! I preferred the older, more expensive one. Unfortunately wine bottles do not transport well on a bicycle. And I couldn’t very well drink it all myself at night by the campfire. It would make the children nervous.

 

We stopped for fish and chips by the Welland Canal (which allow ships to pass around Niagara Falls between Lake Erie and Lake Ontario). I had pickerel, lacking the bravery to try smelts. The fish was perfectly cooked. We sat at a little table on the sidewalk, as the ships passed by. Some of them were enormous, their dark steel hulls hugging the sides of the canal when they passed one another. The steel bridges over the canal were raised to let them pass.

 

I think we ate and talked for two hours. It was a breath of fresh air to spend time with Suzette, who was more interesting, by far, than the scenery. It was also a nice break to spend time with another woman. Not that I don’t like spending time with the kids, but on a bike trip you do tend to get into one another’s pockets. And the kids are so in shape. Sometimes it’s depressing. Suzette could relate to the experience of going on your first bike trip and feeling as if your legs were going to fall off at the end of the day.

 

Suzette and Evan have bicycled through 30 countries over the course of their long marriage. Suzette would teach for a

while and Evan would do contract work and when they had saved up they would take a break and go traveling. Evan has gone to more countries than Suzette. His last trip was to Vietnam. Most of their trips as a couple have been taken to Europe.

 

Evan told us, “If you can’t enjoy biking through France, you can’t enjoy biking anywhere.” Maybe I should have started in France. If your legs are going to fall off, better to lose them in France than on a hot sidewalk in Buffalo.

 

After our fish and chips, we stopped for ice cream. One advantage of a bike tour is that cutting calories is self-defeating. If you don’t eat enough food, you can’t ride. Eating ice cream is practically obligatory. I had cotton candy ice cream. It was an odd flavor and oddly perfect.

 

Next we stopped at a fantastic shop full of merchandise made from recycled materials. There were purses with seat belt straps holding bags made of car upholstery, pencil bags made of recycled water bottles, dresses made of men’s suits and shirts, vests made of men’s ties, jewelry made of old silverware, purses made from leather belts and old hard back books, etc. It was a fascinating store. Everything was very well done. It wasn’t as if someone decided to make a notebook out of old tire rubber and decided that the virtue of the act made the art irrelevant. There were no monstrosities. Unfortunately, neither were there any low prices. I really wish Mary Elizabeth could have seen it. It was so “Mary Elizabethy”.

 

It was nice not to be rushed. Suzette and I have very similar interests when it comes to browsing. It’s as if in gazing at beauty you actually taste it and savor it. Too many people ignore color and form or want to gulp it down, which is the same thing. Eventually we moved on.

 

(Suzette and Evan collect art, something I have wanted to do forever. Each year they have a local art show and each year they buy at least one painting. They tour all the art, and then take turns guessing which piece the other likes best. I don’t know how they decide who gets to buy his or her favorite work, but the result is an eclectic collection of beautiful local art. They never spend ridiculous amounts of money, which makes their collection all the more charming. They remember every piece: the artist, when they bought it, what it reminds them of. )

 

There was a restaurant “tasting day” in Port Colburne, with live music by a British band that plays only Beatles’ music. We listened to the music as we strolled around.

 

Suzette showed me where the canal freezes over each winter. Evan used to have an ice boat that he would sail when the water froze. She said that the ice gets thick enough to drive a car over and that when Evan was younger he and his friends would drive out onto the ice and do 180’s.

 

On the bright, sunny day it was hard to imagine such a hostile winter. It was hard to imagine how anyone could stand to live through it. For that one day, however, there didn’t seem to be any place more calming.

 

After our travels, we drove home and arrived just before Evan and the kids got back from Niagara Falls. The rode up on their bikes, thrilled to have made the trip without the weight of their panniers and the trailer. They had ridden the “Maid of the Mist”.  This is a boat that goes so close to the falls that everyone is obliged to wear rain gear.

 

Evan had kindly watched their bikes for them while they took the tourist boat. Like any large tourist area, the Falls is a good place to “lose” a bike.

 

We went to bed late, after another of Suzettes home cooked dinners.

 

Thank you Suzette and Evan.

 

Buffalo, NY – True to his word, Zach led us into Buffalo and helped cut about 15 miles off or our ride. We approached Buffalo along the Erie Shore, going from picturesque, small town beauty, to rusted, hulking industrial graveyards of dead and dying industries.

 

The small towns were quaint and restful , the houses unassuming and gently aging. Over and behind all other sounds was the soothing susurration of the waves along the shore. This was a welcome difference from the miles of wannabe mansions we had seen both east and west of Cleveland. Lush perennial beds of pink yarrow, evening primrose, roses and purple clematis vines took the place of the professional landscaping we had seen further south. Everything looked wilder and more mysterious, half curtained by untamed trees and shrubs that gave green tinted glimpses of old clapboard and shingle sided houses.

 

Before reaching the industrial area of Buffalo, we passed a long series of marinas. Then we took a wrong turn and arrived at what appeared to be an abandoned part of town. There were few cars in sight and no people, other than the drivers.

 

The street itself was like a canyon, with a street floor and a thin trickle of traffic at the bottom.  The looming canyon walls

were jagged and geometric. Abandoned factories hovered over conveyor belt mechanisms running nowhere, giant pipes connecting nothing and machinery of all description long rusted into stillness. There were dozens of concrete silos, some still looming tall and others collapsing into rubble, their half round interiors gaping open. There was an abandoned milling plant so large that its walls were supported by rusting metal buttresses. Twenty stories in the air its red bricks were turning black with age.

 

Next to the milling plant stood another building of similar proportions. About 15 stories up, the two buildings were joined by a single enclosed cross walk, a hallway hanging in the air, held aloft by a metal exoskeleton. I wondered what it had been for. Why this floor to cross over and no other? How long had it been since anyone had been there? Would it still hold if someone were to use it?

 

As we progressed along this road of regression, we rode more and more slowly, finally coming to a halt at the one, living industry that blocked the end of the road. It was the General Mills plant.

 

The air was full of the scent of milling: grains being crushed into flour, machinery still turning, men still moving about with purpose. There was a high fence and a security guard. This was the destination of the few trucks that had passed us. They were going through the gates and  disappearing into a warren of building as large and mysterious as any we had passed.

 

We looked around for a way forward. Zach pointed to a small iron bridge that crossed over a canal. We looked down and could see the water beneath us as we crossed.

 

On the other side of the bridge, we passed a woman shrouded in a full burka of flowing black cloth. She was out in the heat on a sidewalk, bending over beside a little girl in a stroller. I wondered how long it would be before the little girl with the curly hair would be shrouded, herself, behind a wall of black.

 

We managed to find a path under the freeway and entered a park, once again starving for lack of groceries. Once again, we decided to just purchase a meal. Zack found us a grocery store on his GPS. We crossed back over the freeway on an elevated, fenced, sidewalk, and found a small ethnic store. It had at least twenty kinds of fried pork rinds, two Indian proprietors in an elevated, secured teller area and one tall, ebony Jamaican cook on a platform in the middle of rows of grocery shelves. We made our purchases and carried them back to the park.  There we had a picnic of Jamaican meat patties, cheese balls, chocolate chip cookies and milk.

 

Fortunately, the Peace Bridge, leading to Canada, was very close. We rode to the bridge, eyeing the lanes of trucks waiting to cross over into the United States. They seemed to stretch on forever.

 

We took the pathway for bicycles and pedestrians. Patrick raced ahead with Zach close on his heels. He wanted to beat Jennifer into Canada. I rode and then walked my bike, leaning against the force of the wind off Lake Erie, trying not to look way, way down to the beginning of the Niagara River.

 

The Customs people put us ahead of all the cars. I am glad that I will never see those drivers again. They cannot have been happy.

 

After Customs, we still had two busy highways to cross. The Customs officials went ahead of us, stopping first the cars and then the trucks so that we could all cross safely.

 

We managed to find the bike route and, right away, a bike shop. There we bought chain oil and Zach left to find his lodgings. We rode on, headed for the home of our Canadian hosts.

 

Our ride to Fontville, Canada was eventful only for its length (much longer than anticipated) and the fire we passed along the way. An automobile junkyard had caught fire along just off our route. We talked with the policeman at the road block and he let us through. He also informed us that our destination was about 8 miles further than we had expected. It was getting dark and we were tired and I was crabby. We rode on.

 

Our Canadian host, Evan, was concerned at our failure to arrive and came to meet us along the way. He could not put us and our bikes and gear in his car, but he told us, “There is an end. You are almost there.”  He drove ahead, promising to meet us at the corner.

 

We took one last, wrong turn, and lost Evan. We called his wife, Suzette, however, and she directed us to the correct route. Finally, long after dark, we arrived. At what must have been about eleven, we sat down for a very late dinner of homemade chili. Joseph (age 20) had a beer (the drinking age in Canada is 19) and I felt like having one myself. It had been a long day.

 

The kids pitched the tents in the back yard and I took advantage of a fold out sofa bed. I slept the sleep of the dead.

 

 

Irving, NY - After leaving Sara’s Campground, we made a mad two day dash to get to Canada by Thursday night. On Wednesday we rode over 73 miles and on Thursday we rode about 65 miles. Most of these rides were through Erie wine country in Pennsylvania and New York.

 

There are two problems associated with wine country. First, vines grow best on hills, and hills tend to up. Secondly, wine country is sparsely populated and this means few places to shop or eat. There are restaurants aplenty for wealthy goat cheese eating gourmands but there is very little in the way of grocery stores or even fast food restaurants.

 

I can understand why having a McDonalds across from a winery would be both incongruous and unprofitable, but we couldn’t even find corner gas stations. We rode and rode and rode on stomachs that seemed to get more hollow with each mile.

 

On Wednesday, our first day of riding in such a sparsely populated area, we arrived at Lake Erie State Park (on-map) and paused for a thirty minute break. I was so tired that I fell asleep right there in the grass under the pine trees beside the park entrance. After our rest, we rode on.

 

At four-thirty, we finally rode into a town, Silver Creek, NY. We stopped at the first restaurant we came to. It was a little hole in the wall Cuban place called “Sabor Latino”. The food was fantastic. We had Rellenos con Papas, balls of mashed potatoes that had been battered and fried. When we bit into them the center was full of hot, spicy meat. We also had fried sweet potato pies with a meat center, fried corn meal rolls with a cheese filling and three kinds of pastries, one with a jelly filling in a flaky crust and two kinds of rolls, one with cream cheese and one with custard. Since this was our lunch and dinner, we did not stint ourselves.

 

To drink we tried three kinds of drinks: coconut soda, malt soda and some delicious coke that I had never seen before.

 

I have this habit of ordering the most bizarre foods, trying all of them, and then giving the ones I don’t want to the kids. This is what happened with the Cuban drinks. No one would touch the malt soda. Unfortunately, the kids are onto my little habit, and they grabbed the coke, which was the best choice, before I could claim it. I was stuck with the coconut soda, which could have been.

 

After a real meal, we rode on to Evangola State Park (on map). This park is also in New York, and it is also on the lake. We had learned our lesson at Sara’s Campground, and did not camp directly on the shore. (At Sarah’s, the wind had brought Joseph and Patrick’s tent down around their ears during the night. It had howled around our tent and rocked it back and forth all night.)

 

At Evangola, we ran into Zac, our riding buddy from Chicago. The kids were thrilled to see him. He promised to show us all a shortcut to and through Buffalo, New York, on the following day. At this point, a short cut sounded like a gift from God. I was worn out from all the riding and just wanted to get to Canada for a day of rest.