My first view of the Buffalo skyline appeared when I accidentally paid a visit to Crystal Beach.
Click to enlarge.
Tuesday July 29, 2003, 122 km (76 miles) - Total so far: 353 km (219 miles)
My first view of the Buffalo skyline appeared when I accidentally paid a visit to Crystal Beach.
Click to enlarge.
Today I left Pleasant Beach campground. I have to admit that the campground lived up to the name with very friendly owners. There is a private campsite located at the back of the campground that is typically used by temporary campground workers when they are initially helping to open up the campground. This is a very nice site and has a number of advantages from a quiet point of view.
Yesterday I was considering mailing home a few things to reduce the weight some. After last night I have decided to continue on my journey with my current load. One of the items that I planned to mail was my Thermarest. Last night a cold front came through and the temperature really dropped. I spent the night in my Hammock but as the night progressed I felt the need to add layers including a fleece helmet cap. Finally at about 04:30 I got up to take a washroom break and decided to grab the Thermarest at the same time for insulation. After setting that up in the hammock I was toasty warm!
After leaving the rail trail I discovered Fort Erie right away!
Click to enlarge.
After that experience I decided just to keep going with my current load. It's not that large or heavy and this trip could provide me with other occassions when I am happy to have some item that I would have readily discarded earlier in the trip. (**** This was one decision that I never regretted throughout the trip. Worrying about weight can be carried too far. I found that with my current weight load I never had trouble maintaining my preferred minimum average speed of 20 km/hr so I stopped worrying about the weight *****).
This morning I cooked up my breakfast using my Dragonfly stove. This stove heats up the water quickly and the cup of hot chocolate chased down three packets of quaker oatmeal rather nicely.
I spent the first twenty kilometers of my day first looking for the rail trail again and then somehow I ended up in Crystal Beach which gave me my first look at the Buffalo skyline. This skyline marks my 25% mark on the trip since I see London as roughly halfway down the lake.
Prepare the mortar for firing.......Fire!
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After Crystal Beach I ultimately found the Rail trail. For all the trouble I had locating the trail it was a nice one to ride. Paved surface and I made some nice speed. For some strange reason I found myself going "Chuga, chugga, choo, choo" from time to time as I went down this trail. (VBG)
The pavement continues until the transition point between the Niagara riverside trail. At this point there is a short section through wooded doubletrack. There are a few interesting holes in here so watch yourself riding through.
These three re-enactors are going through the sequence of steps required to fire a weapon by the numbers.
The gentleman in the grey pants is actually wearing the typical uniform that the canadian militia wore during the war of 1812. The gentleman in the green is wearing native dress while the gentleman in red is wearing the uniform of the regular british army.
For the purposes of this drill the militia man was acting as the drill sargeant.
Unfortunately my trigger finger was just a bit faster then theirs. Approximately one millisecond after I fired, so did they. Use your imagination to picture a nice cloud of smoke leaving the rifles in the final photo in the sequence.
Click to enlarge.
Shortly after the transition I came upon Fort Erie. Little did I know it but my decision to stop and see Fort Erie would have a major impact on the future course of my journey.
I have always been a lover of history and one of my favourite eras is the Napoleonic Wars which included the War of 1812-1815 in North America. I have visited every Fort along the Niagara river that I am aware of, including some that are not tourist locations, with the exception of Fort Erie.
Fort Erie had a delightful guided tour completed with rifle drill, rifle firings and mortar firings. There was a lot of history discussion as well. In addition there was a forensic examination performed in the 1980's on bodies found in an communal grave which was captured in a photographic display in the museum area. The combination of all of this led to a new goal for the trip.... to visit War of 1812 sites when possible. This also led to the overall theme of the tour becoming the War of 1812 tour although I didn't know this on the day I visited Fort Erie.
Today was also another day with some butt pain but at this point it was becoming very, very minor. I also noticied that my fitness level was steadily improving! At some points I felt that I was really getting into the spinning technique with good 90 rpm spinning on a regular basis.
You can barely see the Peace Bridge in this picture. The Peace Bridge represented completing the first 25% of my journey!
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Following the three hour stop over at Fort Erie I crossed the border at Buffalo. Crossing the border involved walking across the Pedestrian walkway and then checking in for clearance to continue into the US.
I followed the directions in the guide book for my route through Buffalo. The routing was pretty good. Somehow I managed to start a new tradition of going through major cities right during rush hour!
Unfortunately I came across the Maritime museum at an inopportune time for me. There was a submarine, a destroyer and what I think were two frigates/corvettes which would have been awesome to explore. I decided to continue but with the intention to visit the museum again in the future. With four major ships to explore I would have been there well into the night!
A view of the Buffalo skyline from Fort Erie.
Click to enlarge.
After buffalo I continued along US 5 which is the seaway route. This route features a very nice paved shoulder that is quite wide in New York.
I ended my day at Evanola State Park. I managed to obtain the one cliffside campsite and just after setting up my hammock I was blessed with an incredibly beautiful sunset! :)) I have two pictures of it but the pictures don't really do the scene justice!
The showers in this park are incredible with really good water pressure and plenty of hot water! This park also has laundry facilities so first thing tomorrow I will do some laundry and then hit the road.
I travelled 122 km today which once again marks a new distance record for me. I covered the distance in approximately 6.5 hours so my speed was a bit lower today. Once again I burned 5000+ KCAL or calories.
A rewarding sunset at the end of the day!
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The more my journey progresses the less I care about the food/fitness aspects and the more I focus on the trip itself. This doesn't mean that I don't take enjoyment in the fact that my fitness level is improving but rather that I am finding that the trip is really overshadowing the other aspects which in my opinion is as it should be.
I cooked Beef Stroganoff today which is a freeze dried meal for dinner. These meals don't take very much room or add much weight and there is something nice about cooking your own dinner after a day in the saddle rather then needing to look for a restaurant!
The cost for today's campsite was $15.00 US.
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