Day 44

Canandaigua, NY to Syracuse, NY -- 68 miles Today is Sunday so Ken and Bill (Peoria), John (St. Joe, MO) and I rode our bikes into Canandaigua to attend 7:30 mass. It was a really beautiful church and the sermon was good. The greeters were very nice to let us park our bikes inside the church, too. Since we were riding shorter mileage today, we got to leave an hour later so we were only 45 minutes behind everyone. We caught up to them at the SAG stop (mile 37). We got lucky again with the weather because it was a beautiful sunny morning with temperatures in the low 70's. I'm going to suffer when I get back to Arkansas where temperatures are in the 90's with high humidity! We rode through the pretty lakeside town of Geneva which sits on the northern edge of Seneca Lake, the deepest of all the Finger Lakes. Beverly had a little crash in Seneca Falls but was OK enough to continue riding. Seneca Falls is the place where the women's suffrage movement began and women attained the right to vote. There was a museum there but John (St. Joe, MO) and I didn't stop to tour it because we wanted to check in at the SAG stop before they closed it. As it turned out, we weren't the last ones there. It seemed like everyone was taking their time today. My legs felt heavy and tired all day so I didn't have a great riding day but the scenery was beautiful so it was a good day to ride at a more leisurely pace for a change. We also stopped at the Erie Canal where you could take a boat ride along the canal but we opted to pass on that, too. We got into Syracuse about 30 minutes before the rain but I was prepared today with my rain jacket. Since the forecast calls for rain the rest of the week, I've decided to ride with my rain jacket with me at all times! As soon as I got to my room, I took a bath and lay down and took a nap before route rap -- my first nap of the whole tour! I was really tired. There was a little social at 5:00 hosted by our German father-son team to celebrate Achim's (Dad's) birthday. He provided LOTS of beer and wine for all of us and we sang Happy Birthday to him and took lots of pictures. It was fun. Dinner was a Chinese buffet across the street. It was actually pretty good but not as good as Wegman's last night! We only have 4 more full cycling days until this is all over. They will be long, tough climbing days but the end is near and everyone is getting pretty excited about getting finished and going home.