Visiting our Northern Neighbors

Our “red-eye” flight was pretty brutal as expected but we arrived on time in Albany. Putting the bikes back together was a bit tougher than I thought with no sleep but the hotel was nice enough to give us their meeting room. We met up with Bill and Jeff and headed to dinner at T.J.s restaurant. Our waitress had a good sense of humor – when She asked us if we wanted anything else…I asked her for a good joke. Something about a rooster and a lady of the night.

Our driver Joe was a true New Yawwker and had plenty of interesting stories about rusty cars and union workers. He dropped us off in the “Cobblestone district” in Buffalo which was a bit  scary until we saw the wedding party arrive. Now it’s just “industrial chic”. We rode by the Navy Pier and of course we saw a giant rubber ducky. Our path out of town was a little confusing but we finally found the waterfront path along The Niagara River. We met the most professional tandem riders – Pete and Karen. They had everything on their bike! Bear spray, 5 water bottles, an alligator and a pig horn and 2 flags – one american and one of New Hampshire. In the last 12 months they rode 15,000 miles including to Alaska and the four corners. We rode with them across a rusty but working “swing bridge” (or whatever you call those).

Lunch was in Tonawanda on the Niagara waterfront. We followed the waterfall signs to the American Niagara falls. I enjoyed the different perspective compared to the Canadian side. As if it was our destiny, we crossed over the Rainbow Bridge to the Canadian side. The not-s0-nice border guard told us to get our stuff together “you can’t stop here”. The lady in the booth was even more suspicious of us and asked us to take off our sunglasses and answer the following questions…How do you know each other? Do you have any firewood? What are you doing here? I did my best to answer her but I have a feeling she was still confused and annoyed by us. The KOA campground became our home for the night and our neighbor Jay and his wife Pam generously shared their fire and a few beers. Apparently the camp host didn’t enjoy our singing and guitar and harmonica music as much as we did and he shut down our party.