What has it been now? 3200 miles or so, the schooner and I. Some good hills, some gravel path, some rough city roads.
I finally had to walk the bike. My parent’s driveway proved too much. The combination of steep grade and loose gravel is not a preferred riding surface.
Y’know the picture looks like it’s downhill. Why didn’t you just hook up to the Gator?
What has it been now? 3200 miles or so, the schooner and I. Some good hills, some gravel path, some rough city roads.
I finally had to walk the bike. My parent’s driveway proved too much. The combination of steep grade and loose gravel is not a preferred riding surface.
I swear I was going to ask you this! Did you walk up the driveway or not.
Ive crossed the blue line. The Adirondacks! So close! But, yes, you saw it coming: so far.
The Adirondack park is the largest park in the lower 48. There’s any number of comparison’s to make One of my favorites is that it is bigger than Yellowstone, Glacier and The Everglades national parks combined.
The park is about 6 million acres (about the size of Vermont), about half of which is public, half private.
The public land is constitutionally mandated “forever wild.” of course what “forever wild” means has been the subject of some negotiation over the years.
So I entered the park near the southwest corned and am traveling up to Lake Placid for my friend Lisa’s wedding in the high peaks region, northeast in the park.
So I still have some rising before the next multiday rest.
Amazing.
Seventh Lake in the Fulton Chain of lakes, Central Adirondacks, NY.
The lakes are dotted with tiny islands. There is something about their rocky shores and dense stands of pines that makes me want to swim out and become a hermit. I would live on fish and turtles, Queen Anne’s Lace and pine needle tea. I’d fend off canoers and explorers by simply being there, with my wild eyes and clothes made of bark, loon feathers and muskrat pelts.
Eventually no one would be sure if the stories about the Wild Man of the Island were true. It would become a story told at the camps, an entry in “Strange Tales of the Adirondacks.”
Thrill seekers, bigfoot hunters and paranormalists would become interested. They’d seek out the island - which island is no longer certain. At first, i would invent elaborate ruses to ward them off or misdirect them, point away from my island.
I’d pose as an real estate appraiser and say to them, “no, sorry no Wild Man on this island. A Russian financier is buying it, wants to trap beaver. Try the island in Fifth Lake.”
I’d try to hide, build my home up in the trees, or dig a pit and live like a mole. But the paranormalists, thed have equipment for that. They’d have infrared and ultraviolet glasses, heat detecting cameras and spirit counters.
I would lose my patience, my resolve. I’d confront the interlopers and ask why they don’t just leave me alone, I only wanted to be left alone. The only answer would be the fake shutter sound of digital cameras and mutters behind video, “omg, he’s standing right in front of me. Can’t be more than 20 yards.”
There would be a brief period of unwanted fame after the video shows on Spike TV. I would have to barricade myself in my weekly rate room at the Inlet Rest M tel & Apts. I’d be thought unstable and supported by the generosity of an older couple of long-time residents in town.
When the attention dies, I’d quietly stay inside my room at the Rest, going outside only to walk alone in the woods and cook on my small charcoal grill by the door.
Occasionally a young couple in short denim cut-offs and thick rimmed glasses would stop and take a quick photo of my motel door before hopping back in their Subaru Volkswagen and driving away.
It would be five days before they would break down the door to find me, choked on a morell foraged from the glen only that five days ago morning.
No man is an island….(he’s a penninsula).
So here’s a rare photo of me with the schooner.
Normally the bike is such a prima donna.
Is that a mustache?
Rochester has some beautiful bike paths. Here the schooner and I take a rest on one of the elevated paths over the river.
Once I got towards the port, lots of folks were out biking, walking, sailing. It was great.
Get back on that bike!
On Road Kill
I have been meaning to write about roadkill. Now is as good a time as any.
If you haven’t biked or walked significant distances, I don’t know if you can appreciate the numbers of animals meeting their end in the grill of a Hyundai Sonata.
Unfortunate animals line the roads at a rate of at least one per 1/4 mile, to be smelled if not seen. They are in all manner of final repose, from the seemingly tired to the unidentifiable round of fur and grease. I’ve seen dozens of species, wild things and domestic things.
I’m not scolding anyone or making a pitch. I’m no innocent.
Just yesterday I hit a goose. I rode, ringing my bell and clucking ( as you do when passing through a flock of fowl), warning a way. Well, I took a line close to the river, which happens to be where the geese thought safest. geese are not runners, and as the last ran to the water, I, trying to cut back inland, ran right into it. I think I was the more shocked of the two.
The goose and i have recovered, reconciled by continuing on with our separate lives.
In a way that’s not entirely without metaphor, over the past few thousand miles i’ve become accustomed to the presence of death along the road, as much as to all that living.
What the..
Ive turned away from the lake and am heading inland. Yesterday and today (the morning at least), I’m traveling on the Erie Canal trail. The whole zone is a National Heritage Corridor. The bridges, half of which are out of service, are khaki colored (note that i am color blind) and all are turning 100 years old.
The trail is hard packed and easy to ride, until it started to rain. Then the tires sank in the surface.
It rained on and off, more refreshing than a detriment. On the other hand, I could do without the headwind. Those will continue today. Que sera…
Can you take that all the way to NYC?
