Rome by 11 o’clock

The Erie canal song says Rome by 6 o’clock but for us it was 11 o’clock. We couldn’t find any good places to eat along our route out of Verona beach so we kept riding and riding until we hit Rome. A local told us about Eddie’s diner that served breakfast all day (my kind of place). It’s one of those classic 1930’s stainless steel diners. Eddie Jr. took it over last year when his father died. It was in a rough part of town so we locked our bikes right outside the window and kept looking out to make sure they were safe.

Along the way we stopped at a famous battlefield memorial in the Revolutionary War called the Battle of Oriskany in August of 1777. The US Militia beat the british against all odds. Different indian tribes took sides and fought too. I couldn’t help but think of the blood that was shed here over 230 years ago.

We decided to skip the busier campground and camp at lock 20 outside the town of Marcy. We met lots of interesting people. Tom stopped by to swap stories about his cross country bike rides. He said that on his first trip he couldn’t get over home sickness until North Dakota (wow). A fellow named Izzy stopped by to take a nap in his hammock. Vicki stopped by on her bike ride to welcome us to Marcy. We gave some leftover pizza to Dave who camped next to us. He’s a 75 year old local that was on his way to visit family in Syracuse. He educated us about local history including the Battle of Oriskany and the characters in it.

note: I’m having trouble posting even short videos but I will add them later.