August 14 Day 75 Seneca Falls NY 68 miles 6:00 riding
Another day of excellent riding. Frederick Olmstead of Central Park fame designed the Rochester parks. We rode for miles through the parks along the Gennesee River and the Erie Canal. We watched dredgers getting ready to clear the channel. They use a boat with a crane and a clamshell scoop to excavate silt and drop it into a special barge. The barge has hatches in the bottom to dump the silt. I'm not clear where they dump it.


Dust from the towpath surface covers our bicycles, our gear, us. We are grey.
Deli sandwiches in the park at Palmyra. Palmyra was the home of Joseph Smith, founder of the Latter Day Saints. Instead of viewing his home and the Sacred Grove, we chose to detour to Seneca Falls, home of the women's rights movement in this country. The route led south through Amish farms and more lovely country on tiny backroads.
We called for a motel reservation near Seneca Falls. I asked how much the rooms would cost. The proprietor replied, "I'll give you a really good deal!" That put us on alert because the first motel we pedaled to a few nights ago clearly offered rooms either by the night or by the hour. We spent an hour after we got to Seneca Falls trying to find an alternative place to stay. Everything was booked. Eventually, we gritted our teeth and rode the mile or two out to the Starlite Motel, expecting the worst. The place was great. Somebody should tell the proprietor to put less personality into his telephone calls.