July 9, 2019 - Eastern New York

July 9, 2019
(Pics to follow)

The first part of today was a long wait for Lynn’s bike. The Utica Harley dealership was amazing and they had their service people on it all morning and, considering they squeezed us in to their already busy schedule, they did a great job getting it done. We largely hung around in their lounge and I caught up on some emails etc. By 2pm, we were loaded up and back on the road.

We hopped onto the I-90 because we wanted to try to make some good time and catch up for the loss of the day. We weren’t sure what to expect by way of traffic but, for the most part, it was really light. Most of Eastern New York State is rural and this interstate runs straight through the heart of stunning farm land. There are many dairies here, along with corn and other farm crops and really, it was a beautiful run. We were able to sit at a good highway speed on butter smooth pavement (a major bonus for bikers) and we ate up the miles. We bombed past Syracuse and skirted Rochester and finally pulled north off the Interstate on Route 98. We wanted to get up to the shore of Lake Ontario and find a State Park campsite on the beach.

We came through Albion and it’s such a gorgeous little heritage town with many of it’s old buildings intact. The Erie Canal runs through the town and we stopped to take a look at some of the canal barges and boats.

While we were there, one of the women who runs two of the locks came by in her car and stopped to chat about the bikes. She, like a lot of people, have always dreamed of learning how to ride and getting a bike but it’s intimidating if you don’t know someone who can help show you the ropes.

We told her how we did it - in 2011, we were both keen to get into riding but neither of us knew where to start so we decided to sign up for a motorcycle training program which, in retrospect, was probably the smartest thing we did in this whole venture. Not only do you learn the right way to do things from the start, you aren’t picking up other people’s bad habits and we learned defensive driving strategies that a person may not ever learn by learning on your own. A major bonus for us is that, in our region (British Columbia) they also give you a discount on your bike insurance if you’ve taken the program! We did ours through the Kelowna and District Safety Council but they offer it all over the province. By the time we finished our chat with our friend in Albion, she was stoked to check out the offerings in Rochester. I sure hope she buys a bike.

One of the things she told us is that you can rent boats and go along the Erie Canal. Along the Canal, you can tie up at the side when you come into towns and go exploring and you just radio to the locks to let them know you’re coming and will need a ride up or down. What a fun holiday to do! It was completed in 1825 and runs for almost 600 kms from the Hudson River near Albany to Lake Erie near Buffalo. In 2000, it was deemed a heritage corridor in the US and, in the past 10 years, there has been a rise in commercial traffic as well as recreational use. I’m seriously going to look into what it would entail to rent a boat and do the canal. What a hoot!

From Albion, we shot straight north to Lakeside Beach State Park and we were lucky enough to score a spot right on a little cliff that looks out over the water. The park was very quiet because it was a week day so it was a lovely little retreat for a night. As the evening descended, mist rose up from the water, obscuring the division between water and sky and making the sun a fluorescent orangey-pink fireball in the sky. We watched the sun set over the water as we enjoyed our nightcap. What a great end to a beautiful day of riding.

I can’t say enough about what a wonderful experience we’ve had in Upstate New York. When one thinks of New York, the city tends to pop into mind, that bustling metropolis that never sleeps, but really, the entire northern part of the State is stunning rural farm land and, of course, beautiful wilderness in the Adirondacks. I would come back to this region for more exploring in a heartbeat and would highly recommend it for your bucket list.