Two Recumbent Trikes: Day 17, Sodus Point to .......Buraby Canada

Part 2 Today was the day to test out the left knee. It started to give me pain a couple days ago. A pain just below the knee cap on the front and inside. I’ve never had this type pain before so it scared me a little. So on the 12th I cut the day short at 20 something miles then yesterday only an easy 12 mile ride around Sodus Bay to a new campground. This morning no signs of pain so it was off to Palmyra and the Erie Canal about 27 miles down the road. I had decided that if I arrived in Palmyra, or failed to arrive, with a sore knee we would pack up and head home. When you pay your own insurance and have a huge deductible, risks need to be minimized.

I pulled out of camp at about 5:45 am with 48degF and cloudy skies. I deviated from the ACA route and took SR21 from Pultneyville to Palmyra. A local said it was a much less hilly route and had shoulders. Well….. the shoulders aren’t great but the cars were good in passing so it was uneventful and non-stressful ride. The town of Pultneyville is very pretty with a nice little yacht harbor and once again I heard the siren songs of Hobie cats on the beach. But the best news was that I had very little knee pain when I got to the Erie Canal, yeah!!

From Palmyra we decide to skip the Erie Canal part of the ACA route. I did the entire canal from Buffalo to Albany a few years ago and I really hate repeating routes. So we packed the car and gave the knee a 3 hour rest as we drove back roads to Buffalo and crossed to the Canadian side. I restarted riding near the Ft Erie Park. There is a wonderful paved trail from Ft Erie for 19 miles to Port Colborne. My body came alive on this rail trail. After all those mountains, cold temps and rain, here was a +/- 1% grade with sun and 70degF . I felt like a machine cranking along this lightly used trail!!! After about 50 miles total I called it “A Day” and Uber-SAG Donna picked me up at a church in Burnaby. So tonight we’re in a great Provincial Park that has nicer facilities than any US state/fed park we’ve stayed in. So nice, that we plan to spend every night in a Provincial Park while in Canada.

Fallen Solider Memorial - New York USA

WARNING, WARNING Political non trike RANT ON: I’ve seen several of these types of memorials on the back roads of the north-east USA. It’s an incredibly sad sight, because more than likely it’s for a fallen husband/wife/son/daughter of the home. But what makes me madder than hell is that the vast majority of politicians that have sent these fine people to their deaths will never have this memorial in front of their home. Why, because their privileged sons/daughters will never serve (Jim Webb is the only political exception I know of). I just fundamentally think its wrong to have the power of life and death when you have no skin in the game. We either need to end these endless wars or institute a national draft with ZERO deferments for any man or woman between 21 and 55. You'll see how fast the wars end when every politician's or Wall Street financial big wig's son/daughter can be drafted and goes to the middle east. RANT OFF.