Getting Closer to the 'Promised Land...

Today a good portion of our journey was in wine country. Rows and rows of grape vines. The smell was amazing. In a number of the vineyards, they were harvesting the grapes.

 Thursday
Distance Travelled via bicycle today: 44km
Distance Travelled via bicycle TOTAL:  247km

Today, the rain held off (until this evening) and we had a day of clouds and a few times the sun managed to peek through. I am not complaining because this is much better than the rain we cycled through all day yesterday. :-)

Rod dropped Audrey and me off in Ripley, New York. As we were unloading our bikes, Audrey realized that she had forgot her key to her bike lock! We had our bikes locked together on the truck. The plan was to bike from Ripley, NY back here to Erie, PA. It took about 45min-60min to get there and we would have had to come back here and pick up the key and go back again. We decided to try to see if a shop in town had cutters or something so we could cut off the lock instead of driving 90min or 2 hours back and forth. As we were driving we saw a young man and his dad with a work truck. We pulled in and asked if they could help. I mentioned in my last blog how friendly most people we have met have been. Well this guy didn't disappoint us.  He helped us and we got back on our way within 20min. (Mind you it was REALLY difficult to get the lock off).

Audrey coming down a hill as we cycled along Lake Erie.

We got on our way. It was going to be a little over 40km to Erin, PA. The ride today we a bit hilly and challenged us for sure! The ride today was bittersweet for me. Tomorrow we leave for Niagara Falls, Canada so that means this was our last ride on the Freedom Trail in the U.S. We have covered the 5 states we planned to cycle the Freedom Trail on. So I was a bit sad it was the last U.S. ride. However, the ride was beautiful. We cycled along the southern shore of Lake Erie. The colours were gorgeous and what struck me today was the variety of smells. For a good portion of the beginning of the ride, we were in wine country. All we could smell was the tangy smell of grapes! We also passed an evergreen forest and the fresh scent of trees was amazing. The properties were fairly large and one man was cutting his grass so we could smell the freshly cut grass and chives. Someone else was chopping wood and then a wood burning fire!! The entire ride was with a beautiful view of Lake Erie. This was a lake that many fugitives crossed into Canada and into Freedom.

Tomorrow, we will make our trek across the boarder and into Niagara Falls. We will do a portion of the Freedom Trail in that area.

 
I went to university in St. Catharine's and didn't realized that Harriet Tubman lived there for a number of years and had re-located her family there while she worked fervently bringing fugitives across the border to Canada.
(click here to read more about Harriet Tubman: http://www.nyhistory.com/harriettubman/life.htm)

Tomorrow we cross the Niagara River into the "Promised Land".