Day 42

Erie, PA to Hamburg, NY -- 80 miles Last night in Erie threatened to be a short night because there was a block party directly under my hotel room window with live bands playing (loudly) until after midnight. It became necessary for me to pull out the emergency sleep enhancers -- Ambien and earplugs! I slept like a baby! It had rained most of the night and the forecast calls for rain all week in this area, but thankfully, all of it seemed to move through during the night and we had a perfectly beautiful day of riding along Lake Erie on Route 5. There were beautiful vineyards all along the highway to the right and huge Lake Erie on my left. We crossed our 11Th state line today when we entered New York state. Paula from Sacramento had an accident today when her wheel got caught in a deep rut between the shoulder and the highway. She went down pretty hard, but Mary Ann and Janie were with her and got her stabilized until Tracy and the ambulance arrived. The last I heard she has a concussion and cracked her helmet in four places. So to all of you who don't think it's necessary to ride with a helmet, you're an idiot! Her helmet saved her life. She'll probably have to take a couple of days off, but knowing Paula, she'll be back and ready to go as soon as she can. It's really amazing to see on our map each day how much distance we've covered by bicycle in six weeks. Everyone is getting excited and anxious about this last full week of riding. I'm trying to be especially careful because when my mind wanders I tend to make careless mistakes. With less than 500 miles left to go, I'm not going to take any chances! I've come this far with no accidents and I have to keep my head in the game if I want to arrive safely at the Atlantic Ocean next Friday morning. I was thinking today while I was riding that it would be so great if Lee would surprise me and show up at the hotel when I get there next Thursday afternoon. I doubt that he will be able to, however, because of all the responsibilities he has between now and June 30Th, the date we close on the house we're selling and the house we're buying (which I haven't even seen yet!). Our ride tomorrow will be a very tough one. We're riding 93 miles to Canandaigua, one of the Finger Lakes towns, and it's going to be a big climbing day.