The hotel had a light shining directly into the room, with no way to close the curtains. I woke up at 3 and tried to hang a towel to block it, but there was no way to do that either. Luckily I was able to get back to sleep for a while, finally getting up at 7:30 to go downstairs for breakfast. Jeremiah also spent some time looking for the hole causing yesterday’s flat.
We packed up and headed out into the very warm day. The temperature topped out at almost 80 and there was a southwest wind.
It didn’t take long to get back to the trail, and we ran into a nice separated bike lane on the road on the way there, marked as the Empire State Trail. Where did it come from? It certainly wasn’t on the planned route from the guidebook. I really like knowing where the official route is so it’s very annoying to find out that we’ve missed part of it due to terrible signage.
Regardless, we were soon back on the trail and I realized I hadn’t started my GPS tracking at the hotel. I also hate having incomplete data. Oh well.
It was a gorgeous day and we were on trail for most of it. My quads were killing me all day, although my butt has hurt a little less the last two days. We took lots of shorter breaks today, stopping for a pizza lunch in Canastota, a snack and water at a gas station in Rome, and then picking up sandwiches for dinner at a gas station in Oriskany.
We had planned to sit down and eat dinner but when we came off the trail into town, it seemed that the storm predicted to come later was almost upon us, so we rushed the last few miles to Lock 20 to camp.
We lucked out and found a picnic pavilion there. There happened to be a group of cyclist friends hanging out there but they didn’t mind that we also came in and there was plenty of room anyway. A few of them even checked to make sure we had everything we needed before they left for the night.
The rain ended up holding off until after dark, but we set up in the pavilion to camp anyway so we wouldn’t have wet tents in the morning. This pavilion doesn’t have walls but we are fairly sheltered in the middle of it.
Kelly noticed that Jeremiah’s front tire was flat after we got there so he had to do another change. We still have some new tubes with us, but he chose to look for the hole and patch it since we had plenty of time.
Otherwise we stretched, played Farkle, and relaxed with some hot tea.
About 54 miles today.
When was the guidebook published? I just wonder if the section you were on was built after it. Signage is an issue everywhere. I would love to get a wayfinding signage plan job for a pathway network.
The guidebook is from 2015 but it’s the current one they’re selling. I expected there to be plenty of differences on the ground but shouldn’t the signs on the ground be correct?