They Let Us Back In...

Day 60: Brockville, ON to Robert Moses State Park, NY--64 miles

After a great night's sleep at The Green Door, Peter and Lynne pampered us a bit more by serving us a fantastic breakfast--mushroom omelettes, homemade biscuits, and fresh fruit--YUM! They also served up some great conversation and we were so glad we stopped one last night in Canada. But the day had dawned beautifully bright and sunny, so we were determined to reach the USA--so with a couple of pictures, we left Peter and Lynne behind. But we hope to visit them again soon!

The ride was flat and we didn't have much of a headwind. Our first 20 miles in Canada were definitely in the high-rent district--huge old mansions and new McMansions right on the St. Lawrence River. The river is just gorgeous, so we had lots of picture stops, especially once we were within sight of the bridge to the USA. We stopped for one last chai and latte in Prescott and they gave us a great send-off at the Cup After Cup coffee shop. We took a few last pictures before checking out the Ontario Visitor's Center to get the scoop on going across the bridge. We were greeted by three friendly and helpful folks at the visitor's center, and they gave us the advice that we should just go across that bridge like we belong there--because bicycles aren't officially allowed on the bridge.

So off we went toward the Ogdensburg bridge. It is a couple of miles long and is made entirely of metal grating. Therefore, if you look down, you can see right down to the water below--no matter how high you are! Every time we took a peek, it made our stomaches do flips! If a car was on the bridge in our section, we could really feel the vibration. But the craziest part of all was going down the other side of the bridge into the USA. The bikes kind of floated and skittered on that metal grating--very scary! I was imagining having a wreck on that grating, and that wouldn't be good at all for keeping skin on your body. I was SO glad we didn't go over the bridge yesterday, because in the rain it would have been very slippery...

Once on the USA side, we stopped and took the obligatory pictures of "Welcome to the USA" and "Welcome to New York." We then dug our passports out and headed to the customs station. Note--there is no line at this USA entry--almost ever! All the other entries were jam packed and the wait would have been at least an hour. Here, we rode right up to the gate. And then it got interesting. The border patrol guy asked us what we had been doing before we came to the gate. We said we had taken pictures like at every state crossing on the trip, etc. He said "Did you take a picture of our building?" I wasn't sure because I wasn't focusing on the building--I was focusing on the NY sign! They asked us to see the pictures inside the building. So we went over and showed them our pictures. They were very friendly and helpful, but the one guard did say that it would be possible for them to take our camera if they want. But since they didn't see anything suspicious in our pictures, they let us and the camera enter the USA. Whew! We left Canada's great folks and good beer sadly, but we weren't unhappy to leave the roads behind.

Once in NY, we headed straight for food. We stopped for lunch at Vinn's BBQ. It was fantastic BBQ! Note: the premium beer at this establishment was Mich Ultra. Bummer for David, but I got my first unsweetened iced tea in two weeks! Yay!

After lunch and a lots of help regarding directions from the guy at Vinn's, we headed east toward Massena and the State Park where we wanted to camp. On the USA side of the St. Lawrence River, there are a lot of small farms and reasonably sized homes--and it was just lovely! The shoulder was fabulous--big enough for the Amish buggies that frequent the area.

We made it to the Robert Moses State Park without incident, seeing lots of beautiful water country along the way. The check-in was about 2 miles from the campground, and they asked us to pick our site before checking in. So we rode to the site, and there was one of the steepest hills we have seen so far on the way! David volunteered to take the trip back to the check-in while I got things ready for dinner. We had a pretty good night's sleep there and this time, nothing got stolen!