I am writing this on Wed, May 21. There are a few pics.

Monday

If you want to move your boat between the lake and the river, you can use this handy lake lock.

One thing on my “A” list was to do a 2-day ride around Cayuga Lake. The total ride is 100 miles. I didn’t do this when I first arrived because of the rain Thursday. I didn’t do it over the weekend because my overnight parking spot was next to a church, and I figured they probably use that lot. So I got up bright and early Monday morning and drove an hour to get half way around the lake. The ride didn’t start well. I put my cabin key in my car’s cup holder. Or I should say that’s what I meant to do. Actually, it fell between the console and the seat. When  I got to my parking spot, I didn’t see the key right away, got distracted by something else I *did* see, then forgot about the key. I remembered it a couple of hours later, but it was too late to turn back. That created a little anxiety, because I didn’t know for sure where the key was, and I didn’t want to buy a new lock for the cabin.

Bucolic Scene – It’s important to have a good bucket to sit on when fishing.

The other thing that went wrong was breakfast. They were forecasting rain and possible thunderstorms to start about 3 PM. I decided to get to my parking spot early, have a cooked breakfast at the “Be Happy Cafe”, and skip lunch. That way I would be back well before any T-storms. That would have been a great plan, except that the “Be Happy Cafe” is closed on Mondays, and it’s the only place in town that serves breakfast. This wasn’t a major issue. I rode 15 miles to where I could get breakfast, and finished my ride in plenty of time to ride into town (4 miles uphill — an easy ride back on a full stomach!) to get a sausage and onion sandwich, with homemade sausage and homemade bread. It was quite good. The rest of the ride was great. I expected to see a lot of scenes like the “Bucolic Scene” in the pic, with guys fishing and whatever, but I guess it was too early in the season. This is the only one I saw. I took this from a distance because I didn’t want to be intrusive. When I rode closer, I saw that they were sitting on buckets. It’s important to have a good bucket when fishing.

Tuesday

Imaginative Hot Dog Stand

Having ridden half way around the lake, the only thing to do is to ride the rest of the way around and pick up the car. So that’s what I did. My route took me through some of the “unsquished” land (i.e., HILLY). But that was fine. Most of the land I saw Mon and Tue was farms, but larger than the Mennonite farms I saw around Seneca Lake. It wasn’t the most exciting ride I’ve had. Once you’ve smelled one cow, you’ve pretty much smelled them all. I was thinking about what a great idea it would be to stop for an ice cream when I had the great good fortune to ride through historic Aurora. Among other things, Aurora has the birthplace of Wells (founder of Wells Fargo Express), Wells College (how many other people do you know who have personally lied eyes on this august institution?), and the first house built by a white man in 1789 (sometimes I can tell you the words on the sign, but you have to determine the meaning without my assistance). But they do not have anyplace that serves ice cream. Fortunately, it was near the end of the ride. I was not about to see if the Be Happy Cafe served ice cream or not. It’s pretty easy to find ice cream if one has a car.

I got back to the cabin about 1:30. The forecast was for rain to start around midnight, with thunderstorms Wednesday and more rain Thursday. I decided I had done all my “A” items, and there was no reason why I shouldn’t drive back in nice weather. I was home by 9 PM.

A few of observations

All the bridges close to Cornell are netted. Students can jump. If they hit their head on a steel beam, they can die. But they can’t fall into the gorge. Having seen the gorges, I know this is a huge advantage to the first responders. It would take all day to retrieve somebody at the bottom of the gorge, even if they weren’t being moved downstream by the river. Cornell must be a very, very tough school.

After the first day, lows were in the very low 40s and highs were 65 to 70. It’s possible to be sitting in camp reading and be quite comfortable in this weather. It’s easy to be comfortable all night in a cabin without heat. But it’s very difficult to get out of bed in the morning and get dressed. Especially after having done this for several days.

It was very nice having shoes and boots and hiking gear, and the all the other stuff I could bring because of driving up. I enjoyed the hiking even more than the biking. Cooking on the electric griddle was easy. But I missed not having a destination. Being at one spot and being required to reach a second spot is a powerful motivator for getting moving in the morning.

Living in a house with heat, indoor plumbing, and a kitchen sink makes life a lot easier.

I hope this finds everybody doing well.