Alright, it's been a couple of days and a lot has happened, so bear with me. I apologize for being late with the posts, but Mandy kept me quite nicely distracted!The day we left Old Forge began peacefully in our campsite at Nicks Lake, but started to get a little strange as soon as we got to town for breakfast. We couldn't find a place that advertised breakfast, so we tried Walt's Diner thinking that a diner would have breakfast. We were right, they did have breakfast, but only until 11:00 and it was 11:13, so no breakfast for us. The service was marginal and we paid far too much for the little sandwiches we got, but we were fed, and that was the point.
Our bellies were full-ish, so we headed out of town and stopped for gas. I pulled up and started filling the tank. I spaced off for a bit and then looked over at the gallon counter on the pump and it was a little past 5.5 gallons and I thought, "It can't possibly be taking that much…" Then I looked at the bike and the gas was pouring out all over the bike! Shit! Shit! Shit! Shit! I began to panic and Mandy stood flabbergasted and not knowing what to do, then she went to get paper towels. Just as I was starting to make some progress with the towels a guy there to fix another pump said, "Did that nozzle not shut off?"
"Nope, just dumped all over my bike," I told him shrugging my shoulders
"Well, here," he said handing me a box of heftier paper towels.
Things were looking up a bit because someone had extended some help to someone, and I appreciated it greatly. Later, after drying off the bike and cleaning myself up I went to tell the attendant inside that the pump had failed to shut off and she responded, "Again? The guy just fixed it a couple of days ago." I know that was meant to make me feel a little better, but it made me feel like they were more neglectful than before. I wasn't exactly angry, but I wasn't happy about the situation either.
We sat around for a bit and waited for the rest of the spill to evaporate before getting back on the bike to leave. When we got on the road and didn't burst into flames I was feeling better. We were moving again and the scenery was nice. We had decided to backtrack a little bit and then cut over to the shore of Lake Ontario, so we headed toward Camden via Florence. Things were going along just fine up to this point:
Seemed harmless enough until I got to the corner and saw this:
Now, some of you will remember my adventures leaving Tucson. Granted, the wildlife in New York is not nearly as dangerous as the deserts of Arizona, but I was not in for having a repeat performance of that day, especially not with Mandy on the bike.
So we turned around and went around the little hill on roads that were not only paved, but painted too! We wound up Westdale and needed a break, so we stopped for ice cream cones. (Ice cream became my favorite tradition with Mandy on this trip. It was awesome!)
After the sweet treat we pressed on toward Oswego, and things started to get even weirder. A little way out of Westdale there were couple of bikes ahead of me going a little under the speed limit, so I passed them. As I was passing Mandy waved, like she always does, and the guy flipped us off! I will never know why he did that. Maybe it was the BMW, maybe the yellow jackets, maybe because we passed him, I have no idea, but I do know that I am grateful that I got to sleep with my untroubled head that night, and not his. I knew I had done nothing wrong, and that was a comfort.
The rest of the ride to Oswego was short, and uneventful, but it was getting hotter out. We had planned to go to a 5:30 meeting in town, but when we got there realized that food was far more important. We got some sandwiches and ate in the parking lot of the grocery store. Not ideal, but functional.
Afterward we decided that we would try to make the 7pm meeting instead. We had time to ride down to Fair Haven State Park and see about a campsite and off we went. Once out of town we started to cool off a bit and felt better about where we were, and just then a bird flew out of the bushes and right into the side of the bike. I am not sure who hit who, but we crossed paths at the wrong time. Mandy said she had turned around to see the bird roll in the road a little bit, and I was glad to hear that it was not suffering.
The woman I talked to at the park seemed convinced that I did not want to register for a site at that time because I wasn't going to pay, when in reality we just needed to get back to town for the meeting. I left with a sort of ill feeling about the park staff, but knew that the place looked nice and had showers so we would still stay there.
Back in town there was some kind of a fair happening on the downtown street with the meeting so we parked the bike and hiked in to the meeting. We both noticed that the people of Oswego seemed a little off. I may have imagined this, but I am pretty sure I have never seen so many people with physical and mental disabilities in one place, and I hope it doesn't have anything to do with the Nine Mile Point Nuclear Plant near town. As we entered the door to go up the stairs into the meeting there was a guy, who was clearly high on something, in the way and stared at us with a vacant stare. He mumbled something to us as we walked by, and I felt uncomfortable.
The meeting was the Oak Hill group. It was a small meeting and we both got to hear about and talk about things that we needed. It was nice to be in a place with family for a bit.
After the meeting we left and had some more strange encounters with people. There was another kid who was high that wanted a cigarette and wanted to tell us about the tattoo he was going to get. His eyes looked in two different directions and his ears had two different size earrings in them. He made me nervous, and I wanted him to go away, but he kept talking for a little while.
While we were getting ready to get on the bike woman saw Mandy's jacket and then tried to sell her another one. Who does that? I mean, she was wearing a jacket. What makes her think she needs another one? Mandy was polite and said that she want interested, and then the woman made a comment as she was getting in her car that sounded like, "Jeez, I was just trying to sell it to her." Don't ever go to Oswego, NY if it can be avoided…
So we left town and went back to the park and found a campsite. We set up the tent and started to get situated and I went down to the office to pay for the site. When I got back to the site someone had pulled a trailer into our site! I asked if I could help him, and he told me that he had reserved the site for the night. I told him that I had been told a few hours before that I should pick a site and come back and pay them for it, so I did, but he insisted that he had reserved that site, and that we should move.
So I walked out onto the road to see if there was another site nearby and that's when things finally turned around for the day. The man across the way came out onto the road and said that we were more than welcome to move our tent in behind his trailer. He said that it was ridiculous that someone would come in and insist that someone move out of a site, and that he would love to help us out. Thank Dude! So he, Danny, and his wife, Jacque, helped us to move our things over, chatted for a minute and then left us to ourselves. The folks next door also offered their chairs and fire to us since they were going to bed. It was a great gesture of humanity and it saved our day. Thanks Jacque, Danny, and the family next door!
On top of the good natured folks letting us stay we also got a refund for the site that had been taken from us, so we got to camp for free! I guess the office woman's fears from earlier were all for naught, because we didn't have to pay anyway.
The next morning it was raining when we got up, but it didn't much matter. We were headed back to Buffalo and would be able to dry things off, and we had been reassured of the goodness of people the night before. We didn't spend much time at camp, and went into Fair Haven to find some breakfast. We found a place with a sign out front advertising waffles, pancakes, and french toast, so in we went. It turns out that the place is an antique shop, a cafe, and has a studio apartment upstairs for rent. The woman working there explained that she was buying the place and that breakfast was all they were serving. Hooray, we had wanted a good breakfast for days!
She took our order, and then went back to make our breakfast. We actually got to talk to the person who made our food, it was awesome! Not only was the service perfect, but the food was indescribable! The best breakfast I have eaten on the trip. (Minus the eggs Mandy made in Buffalo, those were off the charts.) It was the perfect way to start our final day on the road together and we were thankful!
The ride for the day was mostly a straight shot on HWY 104, and mostly peaceful and easygoing. We did, however, stop for some fruit at a roadside stand somewhere near Ridgeway, and man, was it worth it. We bought a couple of peaches and a pint of cherries and they were all wonderful.
While we were eating some cherries and old man came up and started talking to us. He explained that he was the third generation of his family to work the land and that they owned all the land from "that tree down there to the cemetery." He was about to turn 89 and he was still as peppy and active as anyone else at the stand. He stood and talked to us for at least five minutes, chewing the same cheery pit the whole time. He said that he had always talked too much, and that he was sorry for boring us, and walked away. He returned a few minutes later with two more peaches and told us to enjoy them, but not to let them sit in the sun or they would turn to mush. We ate them the next day and they were more wonderful than the two we had picked. I guess 89 years around fruit makes you a pretty good judge…
Once we were back in Buffalo we went out to a meeting at the Serenity Shack. It was another experience of being in the right place at the right time. The three other guys in the room were the perfect ones to be there for us. The meeting was small, homey, and comfortable, exactly what we needed after the day before. Thanks, Paul (Pink-Cloud-Double-Dipping-Uncle Paul), Mike, and Larry!
We then went and got dinner and our daily ice cream cone, only this time it was frozen custard, something I had heard a lot about but never tried. It was amazing! I have never had soft serve that was so good!
When we were leaving the ice cream stand I saw this:
I have no idea what it means or why it's there, but it was something that I had to share with all of you.
Mandy and I had another great evening together here in Buffalo just relaxing together and soaking up the last bit of time we had together. It was wonderful.
Today was relaxed and sad. The morning and early afternoon were spent mostly relaxing with Mandy. And interesting thing happened though, we were able to talk about what we were feeling about being apart again. We both got to say that we felt sad about leaving each other again, but that we knew we could do it for another 29 days because we had done it before. We talked about my thoughts about just ending the trip now and heading home (Don't worry, I'm not going to), feeling that there was something sort of magical about the distance for the first leg of the trip, and that really neither of us wanted to be without the other one. It was wonderful to talk so freely and openly about the way we felt.
After I dropped Mandy at the airport (with only a few tears this time) I went to another meeting over at the Serenity Shack. The guys from last night weren't there, but there were two new people. Something remarkable happens in a room of us when a new person is there, and I love it. I love to be around a bunch of folks who are all in it just to help someone! Amazing!
It turns out that Mandy has been stranded in Atlanta airport for the night, and will not get home until tomorrow. I love it when the airlines overbook flights and then have to kick people off! That business strategy doesn't make any sense to me, but I guess that's why I am out on the road writing and not in an executive chair.
As for me, I am well rested and ready to get headed out on the next leg of the journey!
