Day 42
      Welcome back to the 48  

Today's route was another pretty good ride.  We rode out on lonely, Sunday morning streets for 3 miles; then we turned into quiet Canadian back roads.  We even picked up 0.3 miles of dirt...pretty rural if you ask me.  At one point, Karen and I rode off to explore another option on a parallel road and found it to be even better than where we were riding.  Only problem, it was so lonely, it would bypass the only store we were riding by all day.  That route would make the ride over 60 miles without passing anything that even resembled a refreshment stop other than our SAG vans.  But no matter how backroadsy we rode into town, there was no way to avoid the busy congestion that we would experience close to our destination.

As you might imagine, in contrast to the lonely country roads we rode most of the day, when we entered Niagara on the Canadian side we were in the middle of wall-to-wall traffic and tourists.  "Wall-to-wall" is hardly an overstatement.  The area is congested with towering casinos, hotels, tourist shops; balloon, helicopter, boat, and bus rides/tours;  restaurants galore (some such as the Hard Rock Cafe blaring music), and both people and vehicle gridlock.  It resembles Las Vegas on a parade day more than anything else.  But, it was great fun to people watch and to listen to the language polyglot.  Plus when the traffic is in gridlock, it's easier to get through on a bike anyway or just get off and walk.  Once were were there it was fun watching the interesting and colorful tourists and families from all over the world picnicking on the lawns along Falls Avenue and taking in the sights.

After the riders spent the required time to do the touristy stuff on the Canadian side, it was time to take on the challenge of crossing into the states.  It didn't take long but we finally managed to navigate through the traffic and tourists while inching our way across the Rainbow Bridge and through Customs. Our motel is just a block from the bridge on the American side which is really convenient for tomorrow's day off of sight-seeing and easy to roll into late in the day.

At rap this evening, we said good bye to 6 of our family...Sarah, Bud, Lois, Topper, David, and Allison.  It's always tough to say good bye to people who've come all this way with us.  We wish them tailwinds as they go their separate ways.  That will be tough for Lois and Topper as they are turning around and riding back across Canada to Michigan.  Guess what?  The headwinds we've been having the last couple days are forecast to get behind us for a bit.  I guess they picked a bad day to turn around.  Oh, I've got it...why don't they just keep going with us?  God bless, you will be missed as we journey on.