stage 1 complete: pit stop in fairport

leaving valley falls sunday evening, we rode a nicely rolling 30 miles down to the banks of the mohawk river in scotia, just west of schenectady, where we pitched a tent and cooked up some couscous. those two cups of granulated pasta have become our golden nuggets of nutrition. two middle-aged brothers spied us and rode over on their mountain bikes, all amped up to talk about gear. bruce and jay told us all about their routes up the mountain in the background and admired our racks. all they were carrying, bruce noted, was a rather large silver flask; from the smell of bruce's breath at 5 feet away, i was willing to bet there were only a few drops of canadian club left in the bottom.

we broke camp the next morning and met up with my good friend rebecca in amsterdam; she rode with us as far as antionette's cafe and pastries, where we ate ambrosia and drank the nectar of whatever gods dwell along the mohawk. later in the day, we took respite from the scorcher in the "grand hotel," the st. johnsville house of hospitality and hops. 2 pints of labatt were less than 3 dollars.

then we sprawled out in front of the local church and ate our cous. gutting out the rest of the day, we camped just east of utica at lock 19.

tuesday, we made our approach into syracuse and into the outstretched arms of ted limpert. ted, tom and i spent new years 2006 together in london on an english department theatre program and this was the joyous reunion of "room 14," some of whose exploits are chronicled in the earliest posts of this blog. we also met up with my francophile pal sasha at 'the blue tusk,' whose customers and beers on draft were both approximately 10-15 times that of the 'grand hotel,' where there were 2 liquid lunchers and 3 taps. we were moving up in the world. the ride into syracuse was essentially uneventful, excepting the massive thunderstorm and tornado watch that we neatly avoided by ducking into 'the knotty pine,' a delightful dive diner that sheltered us and poured cup after cup of lukewarm coffee.

we reluctantly left ted wednesday morning and rolled along rt. 31 toward my hometown of fairport, ny. there was a consistent headwind, but i am trying to accept a headwind as a fact of life, indeed, to affirm headwinds as nature's way of helping me breathe in. more importantly, the temperature was much more amenable to inhalation: after 3 days of 90+ temperatures (tuesday midday we passed a bank whose digital thermometer read 101 F), the breeze was like a balm to my sandpaper lungs.

we stopped at a roadside stand to chat with a friendly girl and eat strawberries picked that morning. she was kind to us: "surely, yous can stand here and eat 'em!" she spoke a melodious dutch into a cell phone. i thought that was weird, but whatever: the strawberries were delicious and we downed a quart without trying.

we depart tomorrow morning for buffalo, where tom has a cousin. we understand that there is an arts festival happening literally out her front door, so we are excited to explore that.