It started raining early this morning but we knew it should be over by 10 so we weren’t in a hurry to get moving. Instead of going to town for breakfast, we decided to eat the massive amount of leftover pasta we still had from dinner.

It was done raining around 9, but when we were packed and ready to go, it was kind of misting again so we put rain gear on before heading out. Of course, the mist was over in 10 minutes.

We had a couple of construction detours first thing but they were easy to follow. Although it was still cloudy, I was particularly looking forward to the return of the prevailing westerly winds that the guidebook had promised me.

The trail wasn’t exactly along the canal today and so it had lots of small rolling hills instead of the flat trail we’ve been used to. There were also random short sections of pavement in the middle of the woods between the mainly gravel trail sections. Weird.

We’ve been eating really big meals and not much in between so we decided to try smaller, more frequent meals today. We stopped in Newark for ice cream and baked goods, and later in Clyde for wraps and ciders. The Kee Kee Run Cafe there was super cyclist-friendly, offering us outlets and water in addition to the great service.

There had been some road riding and some more newly-built trail earlier in the day, including some single track, but after Clyde it was all road on a recommended detour from the main ECT route. We rode south through farmland to Waterloo, where we took a brief break at a Civil War memorial.

Then we headed west to Seneca Falls. The Women’s Rights National Historic Park was unfortunately closed but we checked out a few of the outside displays.

Rebecca was meeting us at Cayuga Lake State Park so we decided to head over there and set up camp, then use her car to go the few miles back to town for dinner later.

The park office was closed when we arrived, and I wasn’t able to make a same-day reservation online, so I picked out a designated walk-in site from the reservation system and planned to pay in the morning when the office opened back up. There was a woman at a nearby cabin who offered for us to stay with her or camp behind her cabin, but we picked out our own site to be able to take care of a few things without having to socialize.

The first order of business was hot showers in the very well heated bathhouse. Then Rebecca arrived with a new tire for Kelly, we ordered Chinese food for takeout, and while Rebecca and Jeremiah drove to get the food and firewood, Kelly started changing her tire again while I held the light.

The tire changing turned into a team affair once everyone got back and ate dinner, and we enjoyed the campfire for a bit too before turning in after a long day.

We did 49 miles today and were pleasantly surprised that Kelly’s patched tire made it the whole way.