Texas? Mexico? Where are we?

Wednesday, June 21, 2006. Sackets Harbor, NY, to Oswego, NY. It was a deliciously bright and comfortable morning in Sackets Harbor; we paid a visit to the Seaway Scenic Byway headquarters down the street, gathering some information about the route we were on and where it would lead us, and then stopped by the post office to mail the postcards we wrote last night at dinner, among other things (Mom and Dad, watch for a thick envelope full of maps, brochures and stuff). Since re-entering New York (for the third time) at Cape Vincent, we have been following the Seaway Trail, which is an officially designated Scenic Byway that runs from Roosevelttown to the Pennsylvania/Ohio border along several waterways and lakes (specifically, the St. Lawrence Seaway, Lake Ontario and Lake Erie, including Niagara Falls). Today we expected to rejoin the Adventure Cycling route we had planned before leaving, although now that planned route now seems to be more of a rough guideline from which we will certainly stray from time to time, as the mood strikes us.

We had been warned about a steep hill before reaching Henderson, but that there was a parking area at the top from which a grand view of Lake Ontario could be seen. I heard the word "steep" repeated a couple of times, so I was expecting something along the lines of the road to the Starlite Campground (which see, May 23). It was nothing of the sort, although it was long. The view from the top was well worth it, though. We could see several miles back up the shore to Sackets Harbor, and some of the wooded islands that dot the nearshore lake.

Most of the ride was uneventful, and I was beginning to think it was going to be a pretty mundane day. But as we neared the road that leads from Pulaski, and approached the point where we would rejoin the ACA route, we decided to stop for lunch at a little restaurant that looked nice (and actually open, unlike several others we had passed). We had ordered our lunch and were just talking while waiting for it when the restaurant lost power. There was, fortunately, enough sunlight coming in through the several windows to make for "mood lighting". Our orders were apparently close enough to done for them to be completed by residual heat on the grill, so we got what we ordered (not like some unlucky souls who had just ordered). They even got us a hot fudge sundae, and we're not quite sure how they managed that . . .

We also were entertained by a sundog in the high cirrus clouds that draped the sky above a line of heavy cumulus along the eastern horizon. The wind, we could feel, was blowing the storms away from us, but it made the air much cooler, and the icy cirrus refracted the sunlight to form a partial rainbow. Later we noticed, as the clouds passed in front of the sun, a complete rainbow ring around the sun. With the lake visible to our right, and rolling farmland all around us, it was a picture-perfect riding day.

After we rejoined the route, we passed near Mexico, NY, before actually going through Texas, NY. We had originally set our goal as a campground on the far side of Oswego, but a quick call revealed that they did not actually HAVE tent sites at all, but that they defined camping as arriving in an RV. We found another place quite a bit farther south of town, but they, also, did not have tent sites; they had cabins, pretty much at the same price as a hotel room. So we settled for the Days Inn and walked in to town to see a movie after we got settled in. We saw "Nacho Libre", and were pleasantly surprised at how entertained we were (somebody go make sure Antonio sees this movie - Barb, Dimitri?).

Tomorrow we think we will try to get all the way to Irondequit or the part of Rochester that reaches the lake so that we can enjoy some of the Rochester Harbor and Carousel Festival on Friday. We will have to look and see how far we are from Brockport, just to make sure we can get to the Post Office there, but we are hoping to see the boat parade and the dragon boats. We will also try to catch up with Mary Beth's brother and his family in North Chili before heading over to Niagara Falls. More tomorrow!