May 17, 2021
Day 12: Rest Day in Ticonderoga, NY
Planning Day
I was dragging badly yesterday - it was a real struggle to finish the last few miles to Ticonderoga. I think I'm about over the cold I caught from Doc, but the "sweet perfume of spring" (as Doc describes it) has made me miserable as my allergies react to all the pollen. We were overdue for a laundry visit last night, and Doc rode off to a nearby laundry while I worked on yesterday's journal. It was late after we finished things and ate. And we hadn't planned our next few stops yet so we weren't sure where or how far we would travel next, so we decided to take a rest day today and regroup and figure out our next moves.
It isn't as easy as you might think to plan a bicycle tour right now - the 2020 COVID pandemic has shuttered a lot of small businesses including mom & pop hotels and B&B's along our route. The Ticonderoga ferry was a victim of the pandemic last year and has yet to re-open, although their website says they will do so in "mid-May." Well, that dog won't hunt unless May has more than 34 days this year. So we had to detour yesterday to reach a bridge to cross Lake Champlain.
The route we are riding traditionally includes a couple of small forays into Canada, and that's how the maps are set up. But the Canadian border is still closed, although it is expected to re-open soon. The first venture across the border normally occurs in the Niagara Falls area, and we will be there in a week. But we need to plan for lodging now, and the border is currently closed, so we needed a re-route to get through the busy Buffalo and Niagara Falls areas. Doc called Adventure Cycling and they emailed us a Ride With GPS (RWGPS for those in the cycling community) re-route that someone had concocted last year. It was perfect, except it was set up with a cue sheet for traveling west to east, and we are traveling east to west. No problem - I imported it into RWGPS and saved it as one of my routes and then used the RWGPS software to reverse the route and build a new cue sheet. I saved the cue sheet as a pdf file and the motel clerk was kind enough to print out the 2 pages of detailed instructions for me. So now we have a route to get us from Lockport to a point west of Buffalo near the shore of Lake Erie where we will rejoin the ACA route.
Doc and I spent almost the entire day doing nothing but planning and trying to get lodging at our preferred stops. Many hotels were out of business, one lady's husband had Parkinson's and she was afraid of the risk of letting people stay in her lodge who might expose him to COVID, some towns that had 3 small motels now have none - it was a real mess trying to get lodging. We both left messages for folks to call us back, some did and some didn't. Sometimes we couldn't stay where we wanted but had to stay 20 miles further away - then like dominoes falling, that changed where we would want to ride the next day. So it's more complicated than you might think - it took us an entire day to get lodging lined up for the next week. Mostly it's hotels, but we tried to get into B&B's, airb&b sites, such exotic places as a room over a bar or a room over a country store, cabins, lodges, you name it. We had it all worked out except for one town and it took us hours to finally get something in that town so that all the other pieces fell into place. I was able to use some of my hotel points in larger cities, and that helps - this route is expensive as compared to the Transam.
So now we have a plan for the next week. We will be riding some longer distances than we have been - this was required to make our lodging work out, and it was always the plan for us to average about 55 miles/day and we did less than that as we struggled through the rugged Maine coast, White Mountains of New Hampshire and the Green Mountains of Vermont. We have a few days of mountain riding ahead of us as we traverse the Adirondacks of New York, but we don't think the grades will be as hard as the Vermont and New Hampshire climbs. Maybe I should say "we hope" they won't be as bad, cause we are locked into having to finish each day to keep our lodging plan. Tomorrow we will ride 62 miles, which will be the longest we have ridden so far on this trip. And more importantly, we will climb about 4400 feet, which will be the most we have climbed in a day on this trip - so we really do hope the grades aren't as crazy as they were in NH and VT.
A day of rest has been good for me. I still feel a bit whooped, but now that we have a plan I know what I have to do. We will rise early in the morning and have breakfast at the McDonald's next door and try to get rolling soon. Fortunately 1 of the 2 big climbs tomorrow occurs right away, so we can get it out of the way while it's still cool and we have fresh legs.
Everybody needs a plan - what's your plan? Dream on it...
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2 years ago
Last summer we rode from the Mexican border to the Canadian border. With the exception of the Yellowstone area (which was difficult because of the two night stay thing), it wasn't too difficult to book and was actually very reasonably priced. One of our least expensive trips. I think, because there weren't too many people traveling and lodging was happy to have any customers. This year prices seem much higher.
Stop for photo opportunities on the climb! Remember, the tortoise won the race, not the hare!
I'm loving our journal. Thank you for giving so many details. I feel like I'm right there with you.
Kelly
2 years ago
It seems to be getting easier to book lodging now that we are past the Adirondacks. I think it will be hard to get lodging this summer anywhere that might be considered to be a "tourist area." The pent-up demand from COVID isolation has gotten many motels and lodges in tourist areas already booked for the entire summer. But outside of these areas it may not be too bad. It can be helpful to add AirB&B to your toolkit when looking for places to stay also. Good luck with your bookings,
Bud
2 years ago