Today's Report: 

We all woke to the promise of an exciting day...get on our bikes and ride back to the states.  We've enjoyed riding in Canada as the terrain has been really easy and the roads have been pretty great.  The only downside was the weather yesterday, but we all handled that without too much trouble.  But undeterred this morning, we set off fully expecting our efforts to be rewarded with beautiful views of Niagara Falls before we reentered the US at day's end...we weren't disappointed.

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.  At one point last year, 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.  We really liked that option, but we deferred to our present route that took us past a little civilization.  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.

We had a minor hiccup about 10 miles out of town where we'd done some research to change our approach to avoid a busy road.  There must have been some mix up with the research and recording of the roads as there were a couple minor errors on the route sheet that gave a few a challenge until Barb was able to route everyone on track.  Both Jeff and Jim were in the vans and they too were active on making sure people didn't get lost at the areas of confusion.  As it turned out, we didn't lose anyone and all showed up for RAP in the evening...another successful leg in the books.

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.  When Karen and I arrived we walked around a bit to view the falls before we ventured across the bridge into the US.

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.  It was probably the least busy I've ever seen it on the bridge...maybe the gas prices have slowed down the tourists.  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 4 of our family...Tim, Kyle, Linda, and Blaine.  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.    

After getting through with rap, dinner, and maintenance, we had a little time to go watch the lighting of the falls and the fireworks plus do a little sightseeing for ourselves.  They put on a pretty good light show as you can see from the photo to the right and the fireworks were also pretty impressive.  It was a nice finish to a hectic day except for the fact most everyone got wet just after the fireworks when the skies opened up offering a nice thunderstorm to top off the evening. 

I didn't get this page done until Monday, I just took the night off.  Tomorrow (Monday), we (staff) won't have much time as we have 6 new riders coming in for the final leg.  We'll be working with them to get bikes together and getting them orientated before dinner.  Tune in again Tuesday to meet the new folks and to join us on our last week . . . we'll be the ones in tight, black lycra.  See you then. 

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