Day 45 -- Erie, PA to Hamburg, NY

Miles: 91.63
Total Miles: 3411.58
Time: 5:58
Average Speed: 15.3 mph
Max Speed: 34.8 mph
Flats Today: 0
Total Flats: 14
Elevation Gain: 2064 ft
Weather: 10 mph head winds around 80 degrees
Today we followed Lake Erie on Route 5 for almost the entire ride. We were also riding into a steady head wind, so we had 2 reasons to stop and take a lot of pictures. Also, we rode along side of grapes the whole day instead of corn. We took it slow and stopped for bunches of pictures, which resulted in us being one of the last ones in today. We woke up at 5:30, ate breakfast at 6:00, loaded at 7:00, then began our ride along Lake Erie. For the first 10 miles we were just turning a bunch through town to get to Route 5, but once we got there, we had great views of the lake the rest of the way. When we were 15 miles in, we got our first good look at Lake Erie with only the horizon in the background. It was a great view, but we knew there would be more, so we didn't stop very long. At mile 24 we were already heading out of Pennsylvania. We came up to the New York sign, waited for some people to take their picture before us, then we quickly took our picture and moved along. We immediately realized that we were in the Empire State because the drivers were more rude to us. We make a joke with our Boston friends that the closer we get Boston, the more jerks we see... The just laughed and agreed.

After the sign we rode Lake Erie for about 10 more miles before we reached a mini sag stop. It wasn't an official sag stop, but they had water and snacks. We filled our water bottles, grabbed a banana, then we went down to the pier, sat on a bench right next to the water, and ate our snacks. It was quite the scene: We could hear the waves brushing against the side of the pier, we saw blue water for as far as we could see leading to a lighter shade of blue in the horizon, and we were just relaxing on a bench. We got some pictures then we had to continue because we were at the back of the back due to our relaxation on the bench. We rode along the lake for another 17 miles to the only official sag stop of the day. Just before the sag stop though, we stopped to take a picture of a cliff. It was a cool picture, but the best part was that there was a golden retriever swimming around in circles down below the railing. We watched the dog for quite a while, then we moved on again. Before we made it to the sag stop, we found a state park and rode around in there for awhile. All that was good at the state park was the views, so we took a couple of pictures then headed to the sag stop. Like always, we spent a good long time at the sag stop, ate a load of food, put sunscreen on, filled our water bottles, then headed out.

After the sag stop, the wind started to hit a little bit harder. We just rode nice and easy, and we eventually left Route 5 and started heading away from the lake. When we were only about 10 miles past the sag stop, we came upon a store with a bunch of iron cast statues outside, including one that was a 2 story tall girl. We took a picture, but the pose wasn't my idea... I promise. We took some pictures with some other statues including a couple of Statue of Liberties. After our fun with the inanimate objects, we continued riding into the wind. Since we weren't next to the Lake Erie anymore, there wasn't many photo opportunities... so we took a picture of grapes. We figured that since we took pictures of corn, we have to take pictures of grapes. Once we finally arrived into the town of Hamburg where our hotel's at, we rode into the downtown... but first we decided to get ice cream. We stopped at Dairy Queen and had some ice cream, but Wade wasn't satisfied with a small cone, he needed the biggest one that they had. He tried to lift it, but he couldn't get it, so he settled for a medium. After that he had to try a new bike too... Once again he failed. The day was actually just 85 miles, but since we're crazy, we decided to do 6 more miles into town. The real reason for our madness is a 4 letter word I like to call Wade. He calculated out the rest of the days and he found out that we have to ride 6 extra miles a day for the last 8 days in order to reach 4000 miles for the trip. I think he's insane, but I guess I'll go for it. The downtown turned out to be very nice, so I'm glad we went to check it out. It had a bunch of round-a-bouts, including about 4 of them that we got to go through. Every time we go through one it make me think about M. John, scary thing to think about. Anyway, we got our 6 extra miles in, then we finally made our way to the hotel. Tomorrow is 94 miles, so if we do our extra 6 miles, we'll have another century around our belt.