We got moving out of town sometime in the early afternoon with no real destination in mind. We were planning to go toward the finger lakes, but beyond that we had no plans.
Getting out of the city was a little tricky. I didn't want to get on an Interstate, so that meant a lot of snaking through neighborhoods that appeared to have no traffic laws. There were cars going the wrong way down streets, multiple lanes of traffic on single lane roads, people everywhere. The neighborhoods changed in a block from peaceful little places with manicured yards to areas with signs offering $2500 rewards for murder convictions. We needed to get out of the city, fast.
Eventually we got out onto US 20 and things started to open up a little bit and I was able to relax again. We stopped and had some food and decided that we would try to get to the town of Penn Yan. Once off the main highway the road was flanked by farmland with old barns scattered around, and something that I didn't plan to see in New York - wind turbines:
The scenery was stunning as we wound through the hills and small towns. Every ten miles or so we rode through another quaint (the only word to describe them) little town with it's own cemetery right off the main drag, something that isn't seen nearly as much in the West.
The ride was fabulous because I got to turn the bike for a change, and there was very little traffic so we could take everything in.
We found our way into Penn Yan and got a wonderful pizza and went to the Third Tradition Group. We were late, but no one seemed to mind too much, and as is typical in small towns, they noticed us as visitors and called on us early. We felt welcomed and at home immediately.
After the meeting Sean invited us to pitch our tent in his back yard. The spot was perfect:
The conversation on the back porch that evening was fantastic. Thank you to Sean and his family for welcoming us to Penn Yan.
I woke up in the morning to the clip-clop of horse hooves on the street. It turns out that we are in a place where the Amish live near town and come into town in their little carriages. Crazy!
We started the morning with coffee and, to use Sean's words, crappy store bought danish on the back porch. Amazing hospitality.
We left town with the Adirondacks as a destination. There is a town called Speculator that sounded interesting so we pointed the bike that way. We got on US 20 and is was quickly apparent that the road was too crowded to be enjoyable. We had only gone 25 miles and we were both tired, so we stopped and I found a new course for us to take on a state route north. We had a far more pleasant ride without all the cars on the road. The roads were lined with trees and farmland again, and we were in bliss.
Around 3pm we stopped for an ice cream cone and wound up staying about an hour. (This traveling with Mandy thing is really wonderful!) We didn't stay for any reason, just hanging out.
While we were having a cup of coffee I realized that there was no way we would make it to Speculator, so we got the map and started plotting plan B. While we were looking at the map a local woman came up and really wanted to tell us where to go and what to see. This was when I noticed that people around here love to talk, but aren't much for listening. She would ask us a question and we would get a half-answer out and she would start talking again. I thought it had just been a fluke up to this point, but it's regional. After that we began to notice groups of four to six people all talking and no one listening. It's a wonder that people talk at all.
After ice cream and coffee our new destination was Rome, NY where we found the Copper City Original Group. As we were pulling up in front of the church I asked Mandy if the group out front looked like out people. She said, "Yep, these are our people, funny how we can spot each other." There are few places you will find and old Indian, two black women, three middle-aged Italian men, and a young couple visiting from Seattle (us) all in one place and getting along. These are our people!
The meeting was about fear and worry and what we do with it, a topic that was perfect for us to hear given the way our minds tend to go about things we cant control.
We got a room at the Quality Inn and holed up for a quiet evening, just the two of us. It's good to be with Mandy!
