Day 5 - Who let the dogs out?
Day 5 - Fort Drum to Canton, NY - 57 miles - 2,457 ft of elevation gain
By the dawn of morning the rain had ceased, but the clouds remained. It provided a great cover and kept the temperatures at a perfect level for cycling (at least according to my body’s preference), however, the humidity was present because my ability to respond was working. The sun did come out eventually, and it was pleasant, not scorching!
Today was the day of the animal. We saw 3 turkeys, and I mean real ones, not anyone on the trip. There was a grey fox that crossed the road in front of us as well. Besides the cows, horses, goats, and chickens on the farms, we saw a lot of dogs. Dogs are not welcomed sights when on a bike, because they can take you down. Five of them came onto the road to greet us, thankfully they didn’t attack, but one did follow us for quite a while. One lady was hugging her dog in a struggled embrace to keep him from chasing us (we thank you for your arm strength).
This group is not super talkative, so I’ve come up with a random question each day to spark a little bit of conversation (sometimes only 30 secs, but it’s something). We also aren’t always on roads where conversing is possible, so not talking is a result of the ride conditions. Any way, the questions have ranged from choosing pizza or burger (burger won), to picking a super power (being invisible won), to selecting a motorized adventure from a list of 4-wheeler, dune buggy, wave runner, or snowmobile (dune buggy won), and today’s question “Who is your favorite Bible character and why?'“ and these answers were each unique.
If I could pick a favorite road day from all of my time on a bike, I’d say that today ranks in the top 5. The roads were great! Most of them we had to ourselves and they were really well maintained. There was only one section near the town of Canton that was rough, and by rough, I mean cracks and potholes everywhere. One road was so recently paved that it appeared we missed the gravel experience by a week. Thank you pavers!
There were only 3 registered climbs, but the day was a lot of rolling hills. The wind was on our backs for most of the day, which made for some fast rolling. It truly was an amazing day. We stopped for a break at a church that had the daughter of a king of Spain buried there. Our lunch stop was at a park near a creek and about 2 miles from our hotel. Our driver, Kevin, is a chef so he made us tacos for lunch, and carved a watermelon. It was nice to have a hot lunch for a change. Tomorrow we are back to sandwiches.
I checked us into the hotel and found out the pool was closed. This was a real disappointment, as we were all looking forward to a soak. I took to the interwebs and found a pool about 25 mins away that was FREE. It was a community pool in Ogdensburg, which is situated on the St. Lawrence River and borders with Canada. We swam and jumped off the diving board, and got to slide down a water slide. For dinner, we found a pizza shop and got 3 pies and some wings, and ate along the St. Lawrence. After dinner, I drove over to a park and we explored the lighthouse from a distance and dipped a finger in the St. Lawrence.
We returned to the hotel and had devotions and then everyone departed for bed. We have a 70 mile day tomorrow with about 4,000 ft of climbing, so not an easy day ahead.
