Friday, I usually don’t know what day of the week it is except the traffic picks up on weekends. The campground was really full last night because I don’t think many schools are back yet. We opted to buy our dinner last night at the grocery deli in town so we didn’t have to go back into town after we set up camp.
We, as well as most of the campground, sat down for a quiet dinner. Our next door neighbors went to town to enjoy a quiet dinner. They left their distressed, howling beagle in their trailer. Several campers called the park office while the dog tried to climb out the window. It was a loud, long hour & a half. They proceeded to wait until the cover of darkness to do adjustments, tinkering with their truck etc. We left early & thought we would never see them again. About 6 or 7 miles out of town, they were the trailer that cruised by us right on the white line giving us a fright. (We didn’t report them, maybe they thought we did). Uff da!
I have been struggling with my front derailleur since early on in the trip. It has just been hard to shift. One bike shop said, something probably got in there and when we take it apart at home we can clean it out. Jon was definitely tired of hearing me complain about how hard it is to shift. He started checking it out and we decided to try to find another shop to help diagnose the problem. The first shop we tried in Fulton was only open on Mon, Tues & Thurs evenings by appointment. This seems to be the pattern that we have found, very limited hours & very limited customer service. We always praise the great shops out there & thankfully we found one today!!! First, we ate a good breakfast at Cathy’s Cafe in Fulton. The local hangout for those over 70. We were definitely the spring chickens today. We still get many stares as we enter some places in our bike clothes, kind of sweaty. While we were at breakfast, I called a bike shop in Oswego, NY about 9 miles north of our route. The owner said, “bring the bike up & we will check your cable. If it’s not that we can hopefully diagnose it & give you some service parts if we have them.” It was worth the ride up. They said they would look at it when we got there, not a week from now like other shops have said. We rolled in, were met with a smile, three mechanics worked together to get a new cable put on my derailleur. I was so happy. We thanked them again for their service & were on our way in about an hour. The owner gave us good directions to get back on route without any more extra mileage. What is important here (besides getting the work done) is the shop’s value on customer service. The shop is called Murdock’s Bicycle and Sports Shop right down on First Street. Please check them out if you are in this area.
We continued on over nice rollers for miles until we got to some road construction. The construction wasn’t bad to get through but it stopped traffic for awhile which created some big lines of traffic when they released them. We are a mile past the construction and a semi truck passing me went over the white line into the small bike lane…. I went off in the dirt to avoid him but it is the first time this trip I felt really in danger. I know LOTS of people are praying for our safe journey & we appreciate each and every one of you praying for us!
We have done laundry in Pulaski to get the Erie Canal towpath remnants off our clothes. This will get us down the road for the next couple of days while we are camping until we can find another laundromat.
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