Leaving Ontario, Part II: A Total Tipping Point, a Blizzard, and Best All Around

I woke from a troubled sleep at Lake Shalamar Campground, a family campground located just north of the Canadian side of the falls. The night before had been filled with the shrieks (profanity laced) of teenage girls gone wild. The Lake Shalamar Campground staff totally let the rest of us down when they did not get this situation under control early enough. These girls and their cougar mom/chaperon (yes, she hit on me) had their tent pitched in the space next to mine and this was one of those places where you are assigned a campsite and can’t find your own. It was also one of those places where the management thinks it is a good idea to hire a rock-n-roll cover band to entertain the rest of the campers. Yes…a campground cover band. Lake Shalamar is an “all-inclusive” campground I reckon.

But Ethan, you might be saying to me right now, didn’t you know that with the assigned campsite you would lose that precious independence you’ve worked so hard to achieve over the course of the ride? And…dude. Didn’t the flags go up when you learned there was going to be a band playing? A flipping band? At a campground?

Well…I was not happy about the camping situation, but then, I had learned that Camp Shalamar was just about all I could reasonably expect to find in terms of legal camping. Sure. I reckon I could have hobbitted off to some secluded spot off the side of the road, but at the end of my last day in Ontario, I was tuckered. Too tuckered to make a guerrilla go of it. So I figured I’d take my chances with the family campground. As far as the cover band goes…well, you’ve got me there. But…and I mean BUT…the band had this amazing handmade poster. A collaged affair taking two disparate elements and making them become one. To wit…the resulting collage image was that of Frank Sinatra and Dee Snyder (of Twisted Sister fame) singing a duet. Now. Let me ask you this. How many times have you been to a campground where a cover band played? How many times have you heard a cover band that did both Frank and Twisted Sister?

Okay? Okay. I thought that the sheer absurdity value of this band would more than make up for the potential loud factor. Also: the woman who assigned me my spot claimed that Lake Shalamar had a strict noise policy and that they would be done by 10.

All of this is wishful thinking. First of all, the commissary at this place sold .5% wine coolers. Hardly enough alcohol in those things to induce a sleep if things got loud (which they did). They were, however, Bartyle and James brand coolers, which sent me back to a nostalgic middle school place. Yeah…sorry mom and dad...wherever you are, but I managed to have my first wine cooler when I was in the 8^th grade. Second: the band played Van Halen and Eagles covers…and that’s all. And they played until 11:30. Third: see shrieking teenagers above.

Bitch. Bitch. Moan. Moan. It must be hard for a person who manages to find the time to do a cross country bike ride to deal with something as horrible as a bad night’s sleep. You poor thing. I know. I know. But I’m just trying to illustrate why it was that I was up at 4:45 in the morning and breaking down my camp. Also: why I was in a pretty poor mood when I first saw the falls.

You’ve seen the pictures from the first entry. Niagara Falls is beyond sublime in many ways. It’s also beyond man made in many ways. There is no experience of the falls that a person can have that is not mediated in some shape or fashion by a human hand. Even the falls themselves, the way they so evenly cascade over the lip is something that apparently has been crafted by us. All I could think of during that long and pretty wondrous morning was Red Velvet cake for some reason.

After leaving Niagara, I pedaled up to the Lewiston Bridge, the only bridge in the Niagara system that bikes are allowed to cross since 9/11. Apparently, us cyclists are a dangerous bunch. The bridge was busy. If it were an artery, it would have been having an aneurysm it was so clogged with vehicles. After 90 minutes, I was back on American soil and traveling to Lockport, NY, where I would hit the Erie Canal Tow Path and 90 miles of excellent cycling.

Also: I was back on the Adventure Cycling Map Route for the Northern Tier. I wondered if I would run into some other cyclists. Right when I got into Lockport, I received a call from Cindy telling me that she and Mark had been pulled over by the Canadian equivalent of the State Police. They told them that Highway 17 was not safe to bicycle on and that 2 weeks earlier a cyclist had been killed by an 18 wheeler. Cindy, Mark, and I had been complaining about Highway 17 to one another for a while and I wasn’t surprised when Cindy told me that she and Mark had rented a car and were on their way to Ottowa. I was also relieved to hear that they were both doing well. I’m certainly glad that I biked Ontario, but I don’t think I’ll ever do it again unless they pave some of them damn shoulders.

So…the Erie Canal Tow Path is going to be one day a 500-mile multi-use path that will connect Buffalo with Albany. Right now, the path is only available in discrete sections, the largest of which is a 90 mile section that stretches from Lockport to Palmyra.

As I hit the trail, it really started to dawn on me that I was on the last stages of the ride, back in the U.S. and nearly back to the real world. I was excited making good time on the path. It was a beautiful day. About 20 minutes onto the path, I could pick out about 200 yards in front of me the distinct profile of touring cyclist. A fully loaded touring bike is like the 18 wheeler in the world of bicycles.

I caught up with the solo cyclist and we started up a conversation. Meet Chris. Chris is from the Netherlands and is completing the last legs of his U.S. cycling tour. He started his ride in NYC, biked south to Miami, then west to San Francisco, then north to Seattle, and then west to Bar Harbor, Maine and back south to NYC again. When I met him, he had been on the road for nearly 10 months and had ridden over 9,000 miles. Pretty impressive. His reasons for the trip? I believe he’s here to try and understand the beast that is the United States.

We rode along the nearly deserted tow path and chatted for about 3 hours. Along the way he outlined his theory about the United States Environmental Tipping Point. “You Americans never do anything halfway once you get behind something,” he told me. We conveniently did not talk about Iraq. “Once Americans get behind environmentalism, then all of our environmental problems will be solved. It’s just a matter of time before it happens,” he told me. “Think about it. Think about the social capital your country wields and how much influence your dollar brings to bear on things. I, for one, am optimistic about America and the Environment.”

It’s an interesting point…one that I had never really thought about before. Imagine Americans embracing green the same way they embrace Bud Light or the Superbowl. Wouldn’t it have a more profound impact? Chris seems to think that it’s just a matter of time before this happens. Maybe so. Maybe so.

Chris’s ride, as he described it, takes on a very different vibe than mine. He told me that he basically rides one day and takes one day off, which explains why he’s been on the road for nearly 10 months. Also: he’s being underwritten by the company he works for…something that would definitely help with that style of ride.

One of our topics of conversation was beer. He started talking about how he wanted a Guinness. The more we talked about it, the more it sounded like a good idea. By 7 pm, we had ridden about 80 miles together. Chris suggested that we share a hotel room. Normally, I would have said no, but I had been on the road long enough to learn who to trust. We biked into Brockport, NY and went looking for a place to stay. Brockport, NY, has two motels. They have a Holiday Inn Express, and an Econolodge. We went to the Econolodge first. The Econolodge had no vacancies thanks to a soccer camp that was in town. This soccer camp was called Blizzard NY. I guess it was called Blizzard because teenage soccer players covered the town like a thick blanket of snow with acne. The situation at the Holiday Inn was the same.

We decided to take in the local Chinese buffet and then go from there. Chris is new to Chinese Buffets so I had to explain a few things to him. First of all, he was perplexed why, in a town so small, this Chinese restaurant would have seating for over 400 people and second, why the waitress kept coming back literally ever 5 minutes to refill our beverages.

I explained to him that the restaurant was probably pretty empty 6 days out of the week, but that if he came here around noon on a Sunday, it would be nearly completely full. “People bring their families here after church?” I told him yeah, Sunday is a day of rest, and what better day to honor your religion than to have a heathen non-believer fix your lunch for you.

He understood the quick refill with less effort. The more iced tea you drink, the fewer egg rolls you’re going to consume. During dinner we discussed what we were going to do and we agreed to try and find a place off of the tow path and set up camp. But first…Guinness!!

We had a few options in terms of bars in Brockport and I wanted to go to the one that was on the canal. Chris disagreed, his rationale was that we would probably find friendlier locals in the more divey place. I’ve got to say that his instincts were right on in his choice.

We park our bikes outside and proceed to enjoy a couple of beers. After the first, it seemed like a good idea to have a second. Chris and I were discussing the nature of negativity in an amusing way since things were completely lost in translation. I noticed a guy standing at the bar who was drinking something out of a mason jar. It looked refreshing and he was within reach so I tugged on his sleeve. What’s that, I asked and thus began the odyssey at Barber’s Bar.

Sitting next to the guy with the refreshing looking drink were a couple of ladies also drinking from mason jars. “Why that’s called a Wedge,” said one of them. “Yep,” said the guy “It’s made of grapefruit juice…” “It’s the official drink of Brockport,” said the same lady from the bar. “You need to have one.” “Yes,” said the guy, trying to complete his original thought, “It’s quite famous around here.” “Two wedges for my new friends,” said the lady at the bar and she came over and sat with us. And that’s when we met J, the nicest person in Brockport.

J has lived in Brockport her whole life. She spent the rest of her evening talking with Chris and me and being a one-woman booster for the town of Brockport. When she found out our lodging predicament, she decided to do something about it and made a call to her aunt, the former deputy mayor of Brockport. So…down next to the canal in Brockport is a nice mini marina where folks berth their boats. At this marina is a great little grassy spot, perfect for tents but probably not authorized for tents. J was on the phone for a few minutes and then came back to our table. “Come with me,” she said. “I need to take y’all over to the police department.”

“Um,” I said…

“Um,” said her friends…

“I want them to meet you so you they won’t hassle you when you set up your tents. My aunt said it shouldn’t be a problem.”

This was turning into a very complicated situation, much more complicated than if we had just found a spot on the canal to camp on. I wasn’t super happy about the plan. J’s friends weren’t too happy about it either.

“It you aren’t back with her in 5 minutes, I will kill you,” said one of her girlfriends.

“Um,” I said…but followed Chris and J out into the night anyway.

It turns out that the Brockport police station is right next door to the bar we were so we were gone only 7 minutes…long enough for her friends to come looking…something which I totally understand. If your friend left a bar with two total (and transient) strangers, you’d be concerned too. After we chatted with a patrol officer for a minute and they realized we weren’t crazed lunatics, Chris and I were given permission to camp next to the marina.

We went back to the bar and after a while J and her friends left. J was one of the coolest persons I met on my trip…at least she was the most trusting and genuine.

So the owner of the bar came out and bought Chris and I another round of Guinness. About that time, the bachelorette party rolled into the bar and the epic day continued. The game was something like “The Bride to Be Has to Do whatever the bridesmaids tell her to do” and there was a checklist. The Bride to Be (btb) was supposed to dance with a bald man, serenade a stranger, give her bra to a stranger, give a total stranger a lap dance, etc. Apparently, this is something that happens at bachelorette parties.

Anyway, Chris got the bra and I was serenaded. No lap dance…The bridesmaids were all carrying stickers and handing them out to various gentlemen in the bar. I got “best sense of humor” and “hottest buns” from the btb, and “nicest eyes” from one of her friends and “best overall” from the btb’s mom. It was strange but fun.

At about 2:30 we headed down to the marina to set up our tents. Yes, it was a late late night.

The next morning we both woke up around 6 and apparently neither of us was feeling the effects of the evening. We biked the following day together. Chris had purchased a book to help him identify birds and impressed me with his ability to point out the cardinal based only on it’s call.

We biked through the weirdness that is Rochester and I helped him get his new cel phone working. I took pictures of butterflies, rail trestles, and daschunds riding in bikes.

At Palmyra, Chris and I parted ways. I hope he’s doing well out there. I told him to give me a call when he gets back to NYC.