Day 3: Prologue
In the days before we headed out on this adventure, our day 3 host family left us a message that he had found a new job after a long bout of unemployment, and was going to be out of town when we got to Medina. Since he couldn't offer us a place to stay any more, he had arranged for us to stay at a Lama Farm/B-N-B someplace else in town.
Two days before our trip we called teh lama farm to confirm plans and let them know what to expect. The farm didn't know what we were talking about, but offered us a room at a reasonable rate, and breakfast would cost extra. They didn't do dinner.
About this time we started getting emails from a town staff saying they had heard we were out of luck on staying with their friend, but they wanted to take us out for dinner, and they would try to find room for us if they didn't hear anything.
The night before we left home, we were at a sendoff party, and mentioned what a mess Medina had become. One of the clients (a 20 yr old, wheelchairbound with limited mobility in all her limbs) told us not to worry about it, she would take care of us. I hid my skepticism. Poorly.
So, starting out on Day 3, we had no clue where we were ending the day, or even if we'd have a place. I figured that the worst case was we'd pitch a tent on the side of the trail someplace and rough camp. Best case was we'd have a backyard. </Prologue>
Day 3 TriplogWaking up to an empty scout camp was strange. The night before, this space had been filled with people shouting and running, but now it was Monday, the world was at home or at work, and we were the truants, out playing on a workday. We packed up our things, went over the day ahead, and got on the road on time for the first time in the whole trip.
Here's our departure tweet.Today we would cross the border into the USA, we'd find the Erie canal Tow Path and begin riding it, and we'd have to figure out our nighttime accommodations on the fly. We had much to look forward to - and much uncertainty. A screw-up at the border could send us into a tailspin, and while not knowing where we were sleeping could be an issue, a bigger problem could be slighting the mayor if he showed up at the wrong place looking for us. First we had the hill to face though...
Flying down the hill into camp the day before had been exhilarating, but now facing it first thing in the morning - before breakfast even, since we lacked the foresight to set aside food the night before - was not something we were looking forward to. DOTBS was particularly unhappy about setting out without food - he's a big guy who monitors his nutrition closely with his exercise regime, and apparently working out without feeding the machine means a loss in muscle mass... or something. I forget. I also don't work out and rarely eat breakfast.
We began cranking our way up the hill, and found that it was easier than we had expected. In fact we emerged at the top with a sort of "That's it?" moment before heading off toward Niagara Falls. We were on some pretty narrow roads twisting along the "short Hills" next to the aptly named "Short Hills Provincial Park" and enjoying the views and early morning temperatures when my phone started ringing. I pulled off the road in the next driveway and called back the number expecting a Niagara Falls reporter or similer. Instead I got a person talking to me as if they knew me... while I didn't know them. The message was really short. They saw our GPS tracker moving, and wanted to let us know everything was taken care of. Camp at the Medina Methodist Church. Click. Hummmmm.
I looked at Dave and shrugged. Everything is taken care of I guess. We're camping at the Methodist church.
As we started cranking away at the pedals again, I tried to think how food would work, and if I should call back the other woman who was eager to feed us - maybe she'd be willing to arrange dinner. No worries, we'd just get there and figure things out. For now we needed to find breakfast.
We rode around the Short Hills, screaming down the steep descents at 40 and 45 km/h, setting new record speeds with each one, and grinding our way up the next rise. It was some tough riding, but not terrible, and once we were past teh ravine and river drainage, things leveled out again with the grape vines reappearing. We were really hungry, but there had been no sign of life on the road at all. Unless you count one landscaping crew burning brush along a ditchline, or the cars that passed us 2-3 at a time heading into Niagara Falls to work.
Eventually we crossed over hwy 406 - the freeway that leads to Buffalo, and teh Welland Canal, and I knew we were getting close to Niagara Falls. But the guys didn't care.
DOTBS was becoming increasingly hungry. Before long James started chiming in as well about breakfast. I diverted from our planned route to take us past a gas station with a Subway attached. Maybe a breakfast sub would be OK. It wasn't. But James and I stopped in the gas station to see what we could find in the corner store. James found gummy worms. He bought a container of them to fill his top-tube bar. I found a coffee. But no cream... and it was too hot to drink. I had a few sips, and then in the interest of keeping on time dumped the rest of it and rode off.
The ride into Niagara Falls along MacLeod Rd had us alongside some busy traffic, but we didn't care too much. We were too focused on finding breakfast. Up ahead we saw the Golden Arches, and DOTBS decided that was where he was heading. He rode like the wind, and with James went inside to find breakfast while I stood watch over the bikes outside again. I'm pretty sure that by this stage, DOTBS didn't care what he ate, he just wanted calories.
As DOTBS and James ate breakfast, a couple came by and shyly asked questions about us. Apparently they too had heard of us on the news, and they were excited to see us here on our way. The wife kept elbowing the husband as they spoke, and they were the cutest couple ever. They went to their car to leave, and then the husband came back and handed me $40 - he was embarassed and explained that sometime he didn't know why his wife nudged him. He hoped we had a great trip.
Once we were on our own, James asked if we could go to Marineland or Great Wolf Lodge, and I had to say no - we were going right past them, but we just didn't have time to go to the amusement parks. Some time we'd Come back with Momma and J2 for those things. James was crestfallen. We left McDonalds with a pretty glum chum.
It wasn't long after McDonalds that we rode into the Niagara Falls Tourist centre. We went past the "skid Row" of old restauarants and gift shops and past the Ricoh Tower and FallsView Casino, and then, we came to Clifton Hill. Here the lights and sounds of the Hill caught James' attention. He wanted to do all the things. He wanted to buy all teh stuff. He wanted to just stop the whole ride here and not get back on his bike. It took some explaining to tell him that this looked like fun, but we had to keep going, and we were going to come back with Mom and Joe so we'd do all this stuff then. We got a picture, and the poor kid rode down the hill past all the distractions. I felt like a schmo.
At the bottom of the hill we came to the falls. We needed to get a pic of the FROG bike with the falls in the background and James wearing his FROG gear. We tried. It went poorly. No matter what we did, it got worse. Eventually we gave up and just posted up the
best of the worst photos. Frog never complained, so I guess that's a win. The pics got a lot of likes, but you can see that James really isn't happy.
From the lookout, we rode back up Clifton Hill (worst Dad ever) and toward the Duty Free shop and bridge to the USA. I had been looking forward to crossing on the Rainbow bridge, but in just the days before our trip I learned that bikes had to use the car lanes to cross the bridge. I was a little worried about it. I had also learned that the best photos of the falls could be had in the duty free parking lot. We stopped in the duty free lot and tried once more to get a good picture of James and the bike. here he liked the novelty of sitting on the ledge, and was a little better about the pics. His smile is still pretty forced though. Ugh. So much for the glamour shots with the bike.
Once the pics were done, we said goodbye to DOTBS - he wasn't continuing on in the USA with us - hopped on our bikes and rode out of the duty free lot, onto the rainbow bridge. According to our tracklog it was at about 10:37 that we left Canada. we'd been on the road for 3 hours.
Our trip across the bridge into the USA would have been without incident, except that I asked James to stop for a minute so I could try a photo on the bridge. As we took the pic, a car came across and was upset that we delayed him, and decided to sit on the horn. I wasn't sure why he would care about the delay since we were heading into the customs queues where we'd all be sitting anyways. We snapped the photo quickly and got out of there.
According to the GPS, we were in the customs queue for about 10 minutes. As we crept along behind the cars, a motorcycle was beside us. These guys were heading home to Indiana after a tour of Ontario and Quebec. We shared stories and wished each other well as we inched forward in the queue, and then, just like that, James and I were next in line for customs.
Of all the things that could go wrong in this trip, this was the one that scared me most. First, I wasn't sure whether James and I could go through together, or if we would need to be processed individually. Second, I wasn't sure how we would be treated since we were fundraising along our ride. Finally, with recent news stories, I had some irrational fears that James would be detained someplace while I was freed to go - or vice versa - and either way, without each other things would go really bad really fast - James doesn't always behave as one might expect, and on his own in a detention room, things could get tough.
We rolled up to the customs window and I handed over our itinerary (complete with host families and media contacts), passports, and notarized letter to travel alone with my son.
The guard read it over and asked where we were going. "Coney Island"
"New York City?"
"That's the one!"
"How long will that take!?!"
"We expect to arrive by labour day"
"Good luck son."
And it was over. We were in America.
We hadn't even left the customs booth when we were being waved over by Charles. He was a member of the Frontier Cycling Club, and had heard of us through a friend. he was here now to ride with us through Niagara Falls and over to the Erie Canal... let's go!
We rolled out into Niagara Falls roads and started away, james still gnawing on gummy worms, and Charles leading us along. James asked if there were any playgrounds nearby, and Charles said he thought he had seen one. A few blocks later we stopped at a playground and let James go. He ran and played and did kid stuff until he'd had enough, and then we rode some more.
I felt bad making Charles keep on stopping but I had to get a cheap charge on my credit card to activate our US travel insurance, so we pulled in to a dollar store and bought... something. I forget what. Then James wanted ice cream, so we stopped by a KFC to get some soft-serve. We learned that in teh USA, KFC doesn't have
softserve, so poor James struck out again and didn't get his Ice cream ball.
We kept on riding though, and eventually we came to the edge of town. Across the road I could see a handful of folks pointing at us and riding through parking lots. We came to busy, 6-leg intersection and rode across, and when we got to the opposite side the riders met us. Apparently they too were part of Charles' club, and had been watching our progress and waiting to ride with us. We were now a pack of 6. And these Moms had brought their son to ride along.
Pretty soon we had a good pace going with the Moms leading the ride, James and the son in the middle, and Charles and I bringing up the rear of our little pack. The lot of us whizzed through what remained of Niagara Falls, and James and his new friend chatted (and shared gummy worms) all the way to Lockport.
With a friend to talk to, all of James' disappointments from earlier in the day melted away, and he chatted away cheerily about everything and nothing. Topics ranged from Minecraft to bikes to all his expertise on the things we had seen on the trip.
The two boys had loads of fun.Once we arrived at Lockport, we stopped at Lake Effect Ice Cream, and there the Mom bought everyone a treat. This place had an assortment of every kind of ice cream - and every combination - imaginable. I think I got a coconut milkshake. I forget what James got. He was feeling pretty good about it.
As we ate, I got a message on my phone that we had been spotted in Lockport, and not to go anywhere, they were coming to us. Getting these messages can be disconcerting, but also exciting. sometimes the media has gotten your number, but also with how public the ride was, it could be a "fan" or a weirdo. You never know. We finished our ice cream and then wasted a little time. When no one showed up, I suggested that James and I should head over to the canal museum, and the moms and the son headed away to the rest of their day.
We went to the museum, where we were surprised that the staff didn't know we were coming (we had been tweeting them incessantly for weeks) and James loved playing with the displays and pushing buttons. Here he actually insisted that I take pictures of him - which I did. When we were done, we returned to Charles who was resting outside waiting for us.
We were surprised to find Charles wasn't alone when we got outside. Instead he was surrounded by a family - two parents and two kids - both the kids in wheelchairs... one of them very familiar.
Without an introduction the father set in and explained that everything was taken care of and we shouldn't worry about anything. They would meet us up there and if there was anything we needed to just let them know and it would be OK. The Mom kept interrupting with details and facts as though it was helpful but everything was lost on me until two words were mentioned... Methodist Church. This family was who had called me in the morning. They had set up a camp for us at the Methodist Church. The daughter wasn't their daughter. She was the girl from the sendoff party. Somehow she was here in Lockport NY, in her chair, and had arranged for these people to set up camp for us. You could have knocked me over with a feather.
We said goodbyes - after the family made sure we wrote down the address of teh methodist church and looked it up on Google Maps, and explained how to get there - and then got back on our bikes to ride the rest of the way, with Charles still escorting us.
We rode from Lockport along the trail. Its gravel was a big change from teh smooth asphalt we'd had through Niagara - we hadn't been on a proper trail since riding with Sharp Guy back in Hamilton. It gave resistance and we had to work harder on it. It was late in the day and our speed dropped by a few km/h, but we still felt pretty good. The lift of a good friend and some ice cream went a long way. We rode past our first canal towns - Gasport and Middleport and I commented on how pretty they were. I wished I had time to stop and poke around their downtowns. Oh well. We'd have to come back some time with Momma and J2.
Still though it was getting late as we rolled in to Medina and made our way past the town hall, past the Lama farm, and up to the Methodist Church to find our camp. It was no camp at all.
There in the church parking lot, parked under a big tree and next to a gazebo was
a 40' Class A RV with three slide-outs. Under an awning a carpet was laid out and chairs were in a circle. On them sat our friends from the museum, and from inside we could smell pizza and wings. The whole of the thing was decorated with cards and posters drawn up by schoolkids - apparently our Grandview friend had a sister who taught a grade 2 class, and she had encouraged them all to draw up cards and posters for James.
I was blown away.
Charles had a slice of pizza and some wings, then hopped back on his bike - he was riding back to Lockport where his car was. I gave him our Waterfront Trail guide to thank him for riding with us. The family disappeared. Then a car pulled up, and a lady asked how she could help us out - she had wanted to take us for dinner, but she heard from the pizza shop that we'd already eaten. What else could she do for us? I asked if she'd mind doing a load of laundry, and she happily disappeared with our clothes.
James and I melted into the leather seats of the RV. He put a movie into the TV in his bunk and laid there with candy and cookies he'd found in the cupboards. I had a cold beer and pizza. Sometimes when you let providence provide, it provides really well.