We woke up late and had a long breakfast with Mike and Pnina: omelets, fresh veggies (tomatoes and avocados), toast, jam, and Cantaloupe. Mike brought out a glass jar filled with a murky, white fluid; white chunks floated in the mixture, "What's that?" I asked.
"It's herring. It's a... kind of fish?" he looked questioningly at dad, who nodded, "I thought so, but I couldn't remember if that was the name of the process done to it. I've only ever seen it pickled. Try some." He offered me the jar. Hesitantly, I took a tiny piece and an even tinier bite. "Now you can say you've tried herring."
"And I don't think he'll ever try any again." dad smiled, catching the look on my face.
Reluctantly, we left Mike and Pnina's house around 10:00 (one of our latest starts). They offered to let us stay for a "day of rest", but we were nearly to Amelia's house in Ithaca, and had to decline. "Thank you for everything!" we said as we left.
"Thank you for being kind to Yoni." Mike replied. Our night at Mike and Pnina's was one of my favorite stops on the trip.
We rode along the Erie Canal for much of the morning. About 20 miles into our ride, we spotted two cyclists up ahead. As we rode ast, I recognized the people we had met on Bike Fridays outside of Niagara Falls. "Hello again!" I called, coming to a stop.
At the same time, the other three all shouted too, "Stop!" "Wait!" "Hello!" and all stopped as well.
"I told my husband, if we saw you again, I wanted to get your pictures for my journal!" the woman said.
"I was thinking the same thing!" dad answered. Each pair of us posed for the other's camera, then dad asked, "So, what are your guy's names?"
"Dean and Elner." The man piped in.
"And you are?" Elner asked. She copied our names down on a note pad, as well as the blog. When she heard about FAAN, she dug a $5 bill out of her purse and handed it to me, "My granddaughter has food allergies too. Good luck with your fundraiser. I thanked her, and we all wished each other well, then rode on.
We stopped for lunch by the Erie Canal, feasting on cherries and blueberries Pnina had given us. Then, we turned off the Adventure Cycle Route, heading south towards Ithaca, where Skipper's friend Amelia lives. The heat and humidity slowly climbed as the day progressed, but the miles still felt easy and a gentle breeze kept us cool.
Suddenly, there was a metal clank, a rush of air, and an imperceptible drop in the front of the bike: my front tire had just gone flat. Swearing to myself probably more than necessary, I climber off the bike and began to take off my front wheel. "At least the weather's nice for you to change the tire." dad noted.
"I have a sinking suspicion," I said drily, "that by the time I have the wheel changed, the weather will seem far to warm for me." I was right. By the time I had my tire off and my tube changed, sweat coated my face, and my jersey stuck to my back uncomfortably. As I tried to pump up my tire, dad suggested I hold the pump differently, "I got it!" I snapped, more irritably than dad deserved. He backed away to let me finish with my wheel. I changed my hand hold on the pump. When I had my bike back in a running condition, I rolled it over by dad, "Hey, sorry for griping at you back there." I apologized, "I think the heat was getting to me a little bit."
"Hey, don't worry about it." he reassured me, "Everyone gets a little grumpy changing tires."
We picked up groceries for dinner in Seneca Fall (where we also saw a statue of Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton, put in place because of a woman's rights convention they held there in the mid-1800s), then headed off to our camp ground in Cayuga Lake State Park for the evening.
JULY 28 Seneca Falls to Ithaca NY & JULY 29 and 30 in Ithaca, NY
The ride into Ithaca was truly uneventful, except for an annoying rattling coming from my rack. I rode tentatively half the morning, until I discovered that the sound was caused by a loose screw. We tightened it down as much as we could using our hands, then I continued to ride, much more confident that my bike would hold together at least until that evening. After one of our shortest rides of the trip, we made it to Ithaca, and waited in a co-op to meet Amelia. She rode up on a bright red racing bike, then walked over. "Hello, hows it going?" she said when she got near.
"It's been great." dad told her, "And Ithaca looks like it will be amazing."
"Oh, it's a great town for riding in." Amelia told us, "So, there are two ways to get home. And they both involve hills." She smiled knowingly at the chagrin on our faces, "One way, theeasier way, is four miles of up hill. The other way is two miles of really steep uphill, and then it mellows out some."
"I don't know..." dad said, "What do you think, Seth?"
"Lets go for the steep one," I said, "get it over with faster."
"All right!" Amelia said eagerly, "The fun way!... and if we get there and it looks like it might be a little too fun for you, we can always switch and go the other way." The last part had me a little worried, but when we got to the hill, it didn't turn out to be as horrifying as I expected. I shifted down into my easiest gears, then spun my way up the steep, single-lane road that wound its way past a cemetery and a series of beautiful, old yellow-brick houses.
At Amelia's house, we met her dog (part German shepherd) named Indy, for Indiana Jones. We made our selves lunch while Amelia pedaled back to work at Cornell College. That afternoon, as dad was going over the bikes, he discovered a few mechanical issues with mine: one of the supports leading from my rack to my seat stay (the tube under the seat) was partially broken; on top of that, there was a big gash in my back tire, and cracks next to four of my spokes. I seem to be hard on bikes. (I blame it on the fact that Artoo, my mechanical good luck charm, lost his right leg. My good luck charm had a mechanical!) That evening we visited a local bike shop which a Cornell Machinist runs out of his house. He sold us a replacement tire, and cobbled together a few washers and a screw to hold the rack together (he said the break wasn't bad enough to really worry about) but told us we didn't need a new wheel: it was still in good enough condition to make it to Maine.
Over the next couple of days, I visited Cornell College (which was too big for my tastes) and spent plenty of time on the computer, trying to get up to date. Each evening at 5:00, Amelia's husband, Oliver, would bring their kids, Cady and Peter, home from science camp. The first evening, they were shy around the strangers in their house, leaving dad and I mostly to talk to Amelia and Oliver, or read. This changed the second night. A few minutes after arriving home, Cady (who is 6) walked up to me and flourished a wooden sword, "I challenge you to a duel!" to exclaimed in a French-English-generic-noble-person accent.
"But I don't have a weapon." I said with a sinking feeling that I would be stabbed anyway. Cady looked around, perplexed for a second, the ran over and grabbed a plastic back massager.
"Here, use this!" she said in her regular voice. Reluctantly, I took my weapon and stood. Cady began her attack. After a flurry of lightly placed sword blows, she dodged through my defenses and gently hit me on the wrist, "Ha! I cut off your hand!"
"Ahh, but there is something you don't know!" I said, thinking of the Princess Bride, "I am truly left handed!" I switched the back massager to my other hand. After a few more slashes, I tapped her just above the knee, "Ooops, I think I cut off your leg." Cady wrinkled her nose and sat down on the floor, then quickly cut off both of my legs. Soon, I was entirely de-limbed.
"Now you're like the Black Knight from Monty Python," Amelia joked as she walked by, "Come back here and I'll bite off your knee caps." Cady decided to finish me off, stabbing her sword down at my chest.
Thinking I had played my part and was done, I quietly retreated to the room dad was staying in and closed the door, settling in to read Crime and Punishment. Even as I read, I had a sinking feeling that I wasn't through with my new role, so I wasn't surprised when the door flew open and Cady rushed in, followed by her brother Peter (about 8) who was now brandishing the wooden sword. "Trying to hide from us Steph?" Cady said, "Now we'll get you!" The rest of my evening, as well as much of the next, was spent dodging sword strokes, or, as the case may be, failing to dodge sword strokes and thus "losing" an arm, a leg, or my head. The day before we left, Cady came up to me, and in an earnest, six-year-old fashion, said, "You know Steph, you're a lot more fun than that other man you're with. He's pretty boring." Amelia got quite the laugh out of that.
We spent three nights in Ithaca, and by our third morning, dad and I were beginning to get antsy from sitting still. We thanked everyone, then got back into the saddle.
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