Day Five

Boy, we sure had a lot of ups and downs today. 86 miles, from Nassau, NY to St. Johnsville, NY. I'm not quite sure where to start, so I guess I'll do positives first and negatives second.

Today really flattened out. We had a few big climbs, but not much compared to the last few days. We got lucky with the bike paths today (er, mostly, see negatives later,) for they were paved and allowed us to get in some really fast miles. And they were beautiful.

We stopped to find a map this morning in Nassau center. We went in to Grampy's, but alas, no maps. So, we went next door to look for maps. When they didn't have maps or a bathroom, we returned to Grampy's to at least fill our water bottles. But let me tell you, Grampy wasn't happy about us looking for maps elsewhere. He got (legitimately) mad at us for leaving and coming back. Sorry gramps, just need a maps of New York. Anyways, Jason'S friend Dave left shortly after, and Jason and I decided to head towards St. Johnsville (oh, we finally found a map just down the road, New Yorkers love their Stewarts.)

We rode through downtown Albany, and managed to survive. We lunched at Subway, and chatted with the clerk for a while while trying to fond a campground. We eventually found a place, but when we called, the manager told us of a big 5 mileclimb right before, and told us of another closer campground. What a really great guy.

Now on to the negatives. When we were on one of our bike paths, we ended up at a random barrier, and had to lug our bikes up a hill and across a few traintracks.

However, that was the least of our worries. On the next bike path, I was ripping right along at about 13 mph when some kids passed by the other way. I moved to the side to give them room to pass, but as I came back to the center, there was a big wooden post in the middle of the trail that I'd forgotten to watch for. Anyways, I hurdled 220 lbs of weight into the post dead on. However, on a loaded touring bike, you don't go over the handlebars as you might at first expect. Not with 50 lbs of weight on the back. No, what happens in you just stop. Oh, and also bend the bejesus out of your fork. Anyways, it bent straight back, so I can still ride it fine, the wheel is now just about a half inch from the bottom tube. Such is life. Ill try to have someone bend it back at the next bike shop we find, or buy a new fork, or i could just keep riding on it.

And lastly, we ended up riding into the night. We rode through upstate New York by headlamp into our campground. It was cold and dark and not very fun. Jason was having a lot of trouble with his rack too, so he had even less fun than I did.

But we made it. We're here safe and sound, camping again. We were on the road for 13 hours today, so I'm calling it bed time.

Tomorrow: Somewhere between here and Ithaca, NY.