Tour de USA | Stage 46 Albany, NY 79 miles

Ok, so here is a funny story from tonight’s dinner ( or last night depending on when you are reading this post).  We are staying at the lovely (Not) Red Roof Inn and after dinner at Applebees we decided we needed some more ice cream, because as you know I didn’t have enough earlier today.  So we decided to walk across the street to WalMart as the Red Roof Inn doesn’t have a little market with ice cream.  By the Way, the Brits (Pete and Mark P.) love Walmart and were having withdrawals because it has been several days since they have been to a Walmart, except for earlier this afternoon, LOL.  Anyway we decided to get some ice cream at Walmart, and on the way, we found a shopping cart, and because my knees are hurting, they decided that I needed to get in and have the New Kid, Peyton, push me.  And of course, I obliged. 




The rest of the cyclists of course were dying laughing at us, and the local New Yorkers were looking at us as if  we had lost our minds,  and maybe we have?  Anyway, We finally get into Walmart and we are looking up and down the ice cream aisle for the Ben and Jerry’s as I want to treat the Brits to some good ice cream.  We can’t find the Ben and Jerry’s, just 4 empty cases, and I say, it looks like this is where it should be.  I look at the labels on the empty shelves, and yup, it says Ben and Jerry’s.  Below is a picture of the empty shelves, although it’s difficult to tell with the shadows.  So we convince Cathy to go ask the manager “where in the hell is the Ben and Jerry’s??”  She finds a worker, and he goes to find the Ben and Jerry’s, or try to figure out what’s up?.


And out comes Butch, from the back of the store with a basket cart FULL of B&J’s, 

So we dig through the full shopping cart and find our favorites.  Thanks Butch, it wasn’t even his area of the store.

Here we are eating in the lobby of the Red Roof Inn.  Not pictured on the far right is Pete, Mark, New Kid (Peyton), me and Cathy.  Pretty fun way to end the evening laughing and telling stories over B&J’s. And yes we all had a pint each.

This morning started off a little cool.  I opened my door to walk out, since we are at a motel, to go to breakfast next door at Denny’s and found it was very cold out.  I went back in and grabbed my rain coat, and checked the temp, it was 43 at 6:00.  As you can see it warmed up a little bit by 7:05.

I introduced the Brits (Mark and Pete) to the Grand Slam at Denny’s and Peyton too.   They were all very happy and we were all fed very well this am with a ton of food.  There were more rolling hills today, getting ready to head to Vermont tomorrow.

We were along the Erie Canal again today for a large part of the trip.

This was our SAG stop on the side of the road at a rest stop.  Because of the sun’s direction it is hard to read the sign, Historic New York.

And you thought I was touring the US?

Statue of Liberty surrounded by a fence and a parking lot.  I always thought it was a lot bigger and had water surrounding it??

One of the issues with riding by yourself, which I did for half of the day, is you don’t have anyone to take your picture of you doing silly things like  getting inside of the mini truck, oh well.

Below is Cathy in front of the post office in Scotia, NY.  I wish that I was riding with Pete from Scotland during this part of today as this town was founded by a Scottish man/group many years ago and there are a lot of people from Scotland that still live there.

Here is the map from today.  We are very close to Vermont and Massachusetts. We will head a little northeast and go through Vermont and New Hampshire next. The next 2 days will have a lot of hills/mountains to climb, with I hear a 6 mile straight up climb tomorrow. Oh boy.

We had a little more descent than ascent today, hope the legs, more specifically the knee is ready for the next 2 days!  Truth be told, it felt the best today than it has for the last week.

Thank you for following along with me on this journey, and if you can please make a donation to the Children's Hospital below.  100% of your funds go to the Vanderbilt Children's Hospital.

https://vanderbilt.ejoinme.org/bikeacrosstheusa

As a non-profit institution, the Children's Hospital provides care to the children who come through its' doors regardless of the family's ability to pay.  Caring support from the community allows this level of service to continue.