Made it NYC. Not much to say good ride. All the riding is done now.

The second to last day cycling. Its nearly all over crazy. We had pancakes for breakfast an american sunday morning tradition, they were very tasty We pack away our tents for the last time, well really second to last time as we got them out when we stopped for lunch, to dry.

The beginning and end of the day were spent cycling on relatively flat nice paved rail trails. The middle part of the day was spent riding over a mountain between the rail trails.

We arrived at our warm showers hosts and had a good dinner before learning about the pottery work one of our hosts was carrying out. It was interesting to learn about the different techniques that where used.

Tomorrow we will be in the big apple with one week to explore before coming home.

Today was spent riding south along the Hudson rivers east side. Breakfast which was formed mainly of bake sale goods and a bit of Oatmeal and coffee. Over breakfast we watch some american football training and people take the tables away from the park to another function. As we rode out of Cairo it looked like some kind of event was taking place in the town as the streets were closed off and there were a lot of stalls. In fact today we have past a lot of yard sales.

We arrived at are warmshowers hosts and had a good homemade pizza with lots of fresh vegetables which they had grown. We saw some wild turkeys flying in the garden as we were setup our tents.

We now only have two days cycling left and it all seems a little strange that everything is drawing to a close, cycling wise.

14.9.11

We didn’t cycle due to rain, and having a good warmshowers host that let us stay another night! We spent part of the day cleaning a house our hosts were in the process of renovating.

It was good to be inside on a rainy day and know that everything was dry.

15.9.11

This morning was a lot brighter than yesterday and much better for cycling. It was a lovely ride to Cairo, nice rolling hills none to big a good tail wind and a bright but not too warm.

It was a really nice ride today through lovely countryside, it really feels like autumn now a lot cooler and the leaves on the trees have started to change colour.

Whilst we were cycling we saw a lot of the destruction that the hurricane that recently hit the NYC area. All the roads we travelled on were clear but there was lots of stuff that had been washed up by the floods.

A lot of the shops we cycled pasted were closed as they had been flooded, we found one that was open and got some lunch supplies. We have been carrying dinner supplies for quite sometime, but when we arrived in Cairo and found the park we were greeted by a democratic fund raising event. This was a chicken dinner. We got given a free meal which was very kind. It was half a chicken BBQed. It was done on a massive BBQ 500 chicken halfs in total. The most the BBQ people had ever done was 5500, two 150 foot BBQs. The chicken tasted great and there was also a bake sale where we brought more stuff for a very reasonable price. When everyone was feed we got a second chicken dinner, and loads of left over bake sale goods. Too much food! But very kind. We set up our tents for possible the second to last time in the park. The police office is also the parks toilets so we checked in there, the policeman said it would be fine and that we didn’t look like we were going to kill anyone.

Apart from a small climb up to our warmshowers hosts house we had a good day on the relative flat of the canal path and some fairly quiet roads. Going on the roads after being on the gravel paths you realise how much quicker tarmac is over gravel.

I haven’t been taking that many picture lately as the scenery has been fairly similar for the last few days.

We arrived at our warmshowers hosts after google maps got a tiny bit mixed up with the street numbers, it was 200 off, but street numbering in america seems to be a very strange thing as there were not 200 houses between where google maps thought we should be and were in reality we should be.

13.9.11

Another day spent mainly. Cycling along the canal path. We met our warmshower host on the canal path and cycled to his brother football (soccer) game, we watched this for a bit, they had a very hightech score board and timer as well as a very nice stand.

We went back to our hosts house where we were feed some burgers that he called trashbin burgers, as they had a lot of different ingredients in. It was a good dinner and good chats.

After dinner we spent a little bit of time making newspaper poetry and reading a book called The Art of Looking Sideways.

Today we cycled along some of the canal path and some roads. Again it was relaxing riding and nothing much happened apart from a fallen tree that blocked our path on the trail so we had to carry our bikes over that.

Yesterday I forgot to say that we camped near this bridge that was designed so that horses pulling boats a long the canal didn’t have to be untied from the boat when crossing the bridge. It looked pretty good but it was just sort of in the middle of a field, I should have taken a picture of it but I didn’t.

We arrived in Syracuse in good time and waited a little while for our warmshowers host to get home. Then we went out for Mexican and ate rice and pop corn made in a Whirley Pop Popcorn Popper well I think this was a different brand but the same idea. It made some pretty good pop corn.

There is also a husky dog in the house it is very placid.

The last two days have been spent cycling the Erie canal bike trail it is pretty good and a relaxing ride.

Nothing eventful happened whilst cycling for the past two days it was just pleasant riding. It seems strange that there few and few days cycling before we arrive in NYC. The trip is really drawing to a close now.

We camped in the local bike shop owners garden in Brockport, I went in to buy a spare inner tube and asked if there was anywhere good to stay and he kindly offered up his backyard. He had a very big english Labrador called sprocket. We watched some Nascar racing on TV before going to bed. I learnt a lot about Nascar, more than I have ever done before. They drive about 400 to 500 miles in an oval in about 4 hours.

Today we cycled along the path and just came off the path to go to the dinosaur BBQ and supermarket in Rochester. The BBQ was recommended to us by the bike shop owner as well as somebody else we stayed with a few nights ago so we thought it would be worth a try it was pretty good but there could have been a bit more food! We got back onto the path and found somewhere good to camp in a park in Palmyra.

French toast maple syrup and a vegi sausage is always a good way to stay a day. We rode out of the St Catherines with our host, to Niagara Falls, it was a good ride along the Welland Canal there were some massive locks and bridges that lifted up. We saw one boat/ship in the lock. The canal closes in the winter as it freezes over. It is always good to ride out of a city with somebody who knows it as it makes navigation easy, you don’t have to do it and you get a little tour too.

We got to the falls which although being very touristy it was a lot less tacky than I was expecting and the falls and the mist that blows from there was pretty impressive.

We crossed over the Rainbow Bridge back into america, the board control guard was friendly enough and asked a lot of questions it was hard to tell if there were interrogation or just curiosity probably interrogation.

We had a bit of lunch on the america side of the falls before continuing on to our couchsurfing host in Lockport. We head off to the video games store he works in for a mario cart tournament. I was very bad and got knocked out at the earliest opportunity it was good fun but pretty intense with all the screens and noise but it was a good experience. We had some good pizza for dinner.

8.9.11

Today was more riding in the rain and wind. We cycled along for a while, and I cannot remember that much of what happened apart from eating lunch in a bus stop. We arrived at our warmshowers hosts and had a great mexican meal after taking a shower in their very advanced shower. We had some wine from the area, due to the geography of the area they can grow grapes their but because of the weather the vintage is very important 2007 was a good year for red. We had some wine from Wayne Gretzky Estates who is a famous hockey player. The wine tasted good to me I don’t no much about wine. We stayed up fairly late chatting about cycle touring and looking at Cliff`s website, it was good to see the photos from the trip.