Tuesday, September 14, 2004

Hammondsport, NY to Seneca Falls, NY

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The sun streaming in through the frosted glass of the motel door woke us at around 6 am. I was wishing I had packed my sleeping mask. I walked into town to the ice cream shop that serves breakfast and picked up a few things for our meal in the motel. A couple of locals were drinking coffee and discussing the weather.

At 9 am Rich held the route meeting, discussing the two options for the day, 49.4 miles passing once again through Penn Yan with an option for another stop at the Adirondack deli, or the 57.3 mile ride that passed over the hill between Keuka Lake and Seneca Lake. We chose the longer, more scenic route. We were joined today by a couple from Rochester who drove down the night before, Laura and Frank. Frank dropped Laura off at the motel, drove to Elmira to leave the car and took a taxi back. He said he felt lucky to survive the hair-raising taxi ride.

Frank, Conrad, Barb,
Jim and Kate
Atop the ridge
For once we saw a few other riders during the ride, as most of us left the motel right after the meeting. After about 9 miles a few of us split off for the climb on the longer route. It was a long, gradual climb to the ridge between the lakes. The ridge was broad and level and there were many well-kept Amish farms, at times with a view of the valleys below. In the town of Dundee Conrad, Sue, Kerie and I detoured off route and had a bite in the Classic Café, another local hangout filled with regulars. The prices were half of what we normally pay for similar fare. I indulged in the peanut butter pie, about 1,000 calories of goodness.

Farm on ridge
We continued north passing attractive farm sites. With the tailwind, mild temperature, sunny skies and beautiful scenery, this part of the ride was one of the best we've done in a while. Along the way we stopped at the Amish farm store, Weaver-View Farms where we wandered through the goods laid out in a maze around the store. The shopkeeper was watching a young boy who I spotted lying in one of the display cases looking like a caged animal. His face was covered with dirt and he looked very bored.

Belhurst Castle
Today was a day for eating. Stuart had raved about the inexpensive buffet at Belhurst Castle, a former estate turned into an inn and restaurant. We were not allowed to check out much of the castle, which is limited to guests only. The buffet was good but we didn't want to eat too much as it was already 2 pm and dinner was planned for 6:00.

Lost with Jim and Sue,
Stuart and Susan
Outside of Geneva we were routed along a bike path parallel to the busy, shoulderless Route 20. Not watching the odometer, we continued on the path and park road beyond the proper exit. We turned around expecting to see the later riders passing us on Route 20 going in the other direction. Instead, Stuart, Susan, Jim and Sue were riding on the park road towards us, so we turned around and followed them. Mistake. We finally turned around again and found the proper exit from the park onto 20, this time with a good shoulder.

We bypassed the option to check out the Village of Waterloo; we could “smell the barn” and wanted to get to the motel for a shower. That's about all there was in our Microtel Inn room, one of the smaller rooms I've seen in a while. After checking email on the free lobby computer, I showered and stopped by Rich's room for another good wine and cheese party. There were always plenty of good New York wines available with lots of cheese and crackers.

Dinner was next door at Abagail's Restaurant, an OK Italian joint adjacent to the Cayuga-Seneca Canal. I had the eggplant parmagian, discussing bikes, computers and tv shows with Stuart, Sue, Jim, and Cheryl.

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