Crossing New York

         Apparently, we picked one of the hardest Highways in the state to travel West to East on, hence our slow progress. But no matter what highway you travel on there isn't any way to completely avoid the hills in New York. We are now heading Southeast toward Hwy.9 which runs along the Hudson River so we don't have to keep fighting hills but can ride in a valley. This will take us South, then we will cut over to Connecticut to stay with my mother's cousin before going to New York city.

     Rain has been dumping on us almost every day, so most days we only get about forty miles in before its too much to bear combined with the hills, and crawling into the tent is the only thing that sounds nice. We have had some wonderful sunny days, but that's a more recent change which came about this week.

      Back on Hwy. 20, we took a two day break and camped out in the town of La Fayette at the public park because it was so rainy and cold it just wasn't tolerable to be outside biking in it. We barley left the tent and spent most of our time reading. We went to the bar for dinner on our last night there and met some interesting people from the area. The following day the owner of the bar gave us a ride for 18 miles to help us get over the very worst of the hills.

       Highway 20 eventually landed us in the town of Esperance where we met and befriended the mayor and owner of a local restaurant named Steve. We had some of the best food we have had in months at his restaurant! While we were waiting for everything to be cooked Steve let us take showers at his house just up the street. We came riding back to the restaurant nice a clean, probably smelling better than we had arrived, and had lunch. Instead of letting us pay him for our food Steve invited us to spend the night in his guest room so we could have a night inside from the rain. He even made us breakfast the following morning back at the restaurant. Thank you Steve for feeding us so well! 

      We took today off simply because it sounded nice and that we are a little ahead of schedule since we are now going over to Connecticut. We should be there in three or four days. We decided that we won't be going all the way up to Maine after all. The weather is cooling down quickly and there's no getting there fast enough with the hills we would have to climb. There is so much of the country that we have left to see that getting further South and out of the freezing cold rain sounds much better.

Ryan and Allegra 

    

                        Rainbow after a shower.
        Farms off of Hwy. 20.
   Ryan, Legs, and Steve, the Mayor of Esperance, NY.
  Deserted shacks off Hwy. 20 that were once overnight cabins for travelers.
    Valley from Hwy. 20.
    Sunset outside of Sharon Springs, NY.
  Amish traveling on Hwy. 20.
    Lots of rolling hills.
        Lake we came across at the top of a huge hill.
    Ryan ready to descend down 20.
     A fairly good shot of the fall colors.
   Gas station we camped behind in Skaneateles, NY.
        Pond near a farm along 20.