Bike Diary #4 Day 7
Date: Friday June 29, 2001
Distance: 68 miles
Moving average speed: 11.8 mph
Left at 8:45 AM
Arrived at 4:30 PM
Overnight in Amherst, a suburb of Buffalo, NY
latitude 42 d 59 m 35 s N
longitude 78 d 44 m 04 s W
Cumulative distance: 611 miles

More than 600 miles is seven days ... not a bad start if I say so myself.
Of course, there's something like 3400 miles to go, so it really is just
a tiny dent in the total distance.  But it is starting to feel like I'm on my
way for real now.

I started the day with the short ride from Lockport to the Canadian
border and crossed on the Lewiston-Queenstown bridge to ride down
the Niagara Parkway on the Canadian side and see the famous falls.  I
must say that I cannot remember the last time I saw such a
concentration of kitsch and tourist traps in such a short distance.  But
the falls are quite spectacular, and the Niagara Parkway itself is a very
nice ride upstream from the falls.  I rode it as far as Fort Erie and then
crossed back into the US on the Peace Bridge into Buffalo.

An old friend of mine from college, Owen Harrison, is putting me up
here in Buffalo.  We went into town and watched a minor league
baseball game beteen the Buffalo Bisons (Department of Redundancy
Department?) and some team called the "Indians".  That was a blast,
but a very bizarre thing happened around the 8th inning: it started
raining bugs.  I have no idea where they came from, but all these
bugs started pelting us there in the bleachers like some kind of Biblical
plague.  They were very lethargic, once they landed they didn't
take off again, so I suspect they were blown in from somewhere.
Quite a few people cleared out of the stands in fear of an impending
apocalypse, no doubt.  Owen and I are not so timid, and stuck it out
through nine innings.  It was tied up 4-4 at 10:30 PM and going
into extra innings when we left.

I'm going to layover at Owen's place tomorrow.

Day 8
Date: Friday June 29, 2001
Layover day.

I spent the day going over my gear to make sure everything was still
in order, doing my laundry and buying essentials (Coleman fuel for the
stove and spare flashlight bulbs).  We still had enough time to drive
down to Orchard Park and go through the Pedaling History Bicycle
Museum there, a truly fabulous collection of bicycles from the early
19th century to the present.  I highly recommend it to any cycling
enthusiasts passing through the area.

