Coast to Coast 2023

 Schenectady, NY to Lee, MA In Schenectady, we woke up at Eric’s (our amazing warm shower host) beautiful old home. It was basically a mansion from the 1700s that has been since converted into apartment units. From the front it looks like a tall brick town house, but from the back windows it overlooks the original yard, ivy-covered shed, large stone walls, patio garden, and greenhouse. The 6th mayor of New York apparently lived here! You can feel the rich history not only in this house but in the town as a whole. We had homemade yogurt parfaits by the kitchen balcony before we set off to a nearby coffee shop that Eric recommended called Arthur’s market. It was so cute! We got some great coffee and sandwiches to go. I also bought a tote bag that has prints of different shapes of pasta on it so that’s gonna be a wardrobe staple for sure when I get back. Eventually we hit the road for real and headed on towards Lee, Mass. Unfortunately we had been low key dreading this day because it ...

 Utica to Schenectady This morning started out with a bittersweet goodbye to our lovely host Heather, though we did get to hang out with our other host Tom for the first 20 miles of the day! That’s right he chauffeured us through Utica, giving us plenty of fun facts along the way. We stopped at a Stewarts of course, to load up on snacks (I myself also had a wonderful egg sammy). We parted ways when we met back up with the Erie Canal trail and were on our way. We had STUNNING paved roads all the way to our next destination in Schenectady! About halfway through our day, we stopped for some paninis and an early afternoon matcha, then continued along the Erie canal all the way to our destination, passing many locks and cute doggos along the way. Once we got to Schenectady, we were in absolute awe of the neighborhood where our warmshowers host lived. It looked like old Philadelphia, or Washington D.C. There were rows and rows of beautifully preserved historic homes. Our host lived in pe...

Millerton, NY - Farmington, CT August 5th I’ve been delaying writing this. Partly because I always delay writing these things, and partly because it means processing that this journey has come to an end.  After Liz left with her dad the night before Keelin and I had biked the last mile to the campsite and then set up camp. It should have been just like any other day. We had set up camp so many times at this point it was like second nature, but nothing felt right. There was a palpable emptiness without Liz being there. Plus the felling that all of this was ending was really starting to sink in. The morning was no different. I heard keelin rustling at 5a, an hour and a half before our alarm. We were both experiencing a roller coaster of emotions, but we tried to play it cool. We went through our usual morning routine, I ate my last packets of oatmeal while keelin choked down a bagel with peanut butter (keelin has since sworn off PB for a good amount of time, saying that they need a “...

Syracuse, NY to Utica, NY We were expecting scattered thunderstorms throughout the day but woke up to sunshine instead! After a delicious (and huge) hotel breakfast, we checked out and got on the road. Syracuse is a pretty bike-friendly place, and we had a pleasant ride through the city until we reached the Erie Canal Trail again. There were still some nice stretches of well-maintained bike path along the water, but there were also a few rough patches. One detour took us a couple miles out of the way along some busy roads; another section was all loose gravel and super difficult to navigate. We stopped periodically to enjoy leftover snacks from this morning’s continental breakfast. We were in a town called Rome (no, we didn’t take a detour through Italy) about 12 miles from our Warm Showers in Utica when the sky started to get dark. One of the many lessons we’ve learned this summer is that you can’t trust the weather app. Ever. We paused before leaving Rome (I had to find my raincoat) ...

 Brighton to Syracuse, NY After a restful sleep, we woke up in the home of our lovely host, Coleridge. He had prepared fruit and yogurt with orange juice in fancy little classes and coffee for breakfast. It was both adorable and exactly what we needed. We chatted over breakfast and made a promise to Coleridge, that we would reach back out to him to assure him we all finished school when we graduate in 2026. We all put a little note in our calendars to do so. We then sat in the living room and waited our the rain a little bit and chatted some more. Before long the rain had stopped and it was time to say goodbye. I can't express how much I loved getting to know Coleridge and getting experience his wonderful hospitality. What a wonderful person. We were then off to Syracuse! Only 88 miles to go. The first bit of the path was paved which was nice. We made a quick stop for some ibuprofen and to take off some layers, which was accompanied by an adorable little duck family on the canal. T...

iagara Falls, ON to Brighton, NY As Taylor Swift says, “Welcome to New York, it’s been waiting for you!” After a big hotel breakfast (and packing up snacks for later), we crossed the Rainbow International Bridge back into the US this morning. The security checkpoint was pretty busy, so instead of riding over, it felt like we were walking through a crowd of cars. Once we got across the border, we rode through Niagara Falls, NY searching for a sound we hadn’t heard before: the Erie Canal! The first stretch of the Empire State Trail was a lovely packed gravel dust path that follows right alongside the canal. We passed through a few quaint towns and enjoyed views of beautiful weeping willow trees, old barns, and plenty more cornfields. It was a nice break from car traffic, and we used the quiet time to listen to music/audiobooks, call friends/family, and play a few rounds of “I’m going on a picnic!” It was a long ride today (nearly 90 miles), and we got a late start with the delay at the b...

 Cayuga to Niagara Falls, ON Today we woke up at sun retreats campground in Cayuga. It was a short day for us - just 41 miles - but we got an early start in order to get to Niagara Falls by midday. We basically went right for it and didn’t plan to take many stops. Instead of taking route 3 which we found to be pretty unpleasant because of busy cars and little shoulder, we navigated a different route and took side roads all the way there. It was much more peaceful and enjoyable. We got to see lots of gorgeous Victorian homes and bought fresh sourdough bread on the side of the road (the loaf was eaten in a few hours). We were also still in the hunt for a new tire and tube for Audrey since she had gotten another flat two days before, but with the closest bike shop being in Niagara, we were just hoping that we’d get there asap without any hiccups. Although we’re not generally a superstitious crowd, the word “flat” was not said once until we arrived. Approaching Niagara it got busier an...

 St. Thomas to Cayuga, ON We woke up a little later than normal this morning -- 7:30, what a treat. We planned on getting a later start in order to get to a bike shop when it opened at 11am, which was 10 miles in the direction we were headed. We cruised those first 10 miles out of the populated city of St. Thomas and found ourselves back in the rural farmlands of Ontario before long. We were on route 3 for the first bit of the day which I must say, I did not like at all. Very busy, almost no shoulder. However it was made up for by the fact that nearly every car in Canada was entirely courteous and moved over across the yellow line to give us space. We rolled up to the bike shop, and saw the words we really did not want to see, "closed". No!! Google lied to us! Audrey was out of spare tubes and had 4 flats in the last 10 days. Quickly we tried to think of an alternative. I remembered my dad had mentioned  that Walmart carries tubes that have sealant already in them.. a bell ru...

 Wallaceberg to St. Thomas, ON Today we woke up at the beautiful Shiloh campground in Wallaceberg, Ontario, right off of Walpole Island. Yesterday was our first evening in Canada and it was so memorable. Today we have a longer day…it’s about 72 miles to our next destination, Dalewood Conservation Area in St. Thomas. Rogan and Olivia left a little earlier than us but about 10 miles down route 40 we magically saw them at a Starbucks and happily pulled over. After an iced coffee and bagel, we got back on the road. It was not a super memorable day, to be honest. No podcasts or music for me, just chatted with Claire and enjoyed the peace. We stopped next at a grocery store in Belheim and Claire ate so many fruit snacks that she gave herself a stomach ache. About 15 miles later Audrey got a flat along route 3 which unfortunately took about an hour to change due to some weird pinching happening around the valve. Once we fixed it (with the help of Dan Surkis as always) it was about 2:30 an...

Oxford, MI to Wallaceburg, ON (Audrey) Welcome to Canada! We had a lovely night at our Warm Showers but unfortunately woke up to a pretty steady rain. We decided to wait until it stopped and got to make a hot breakfast/sleep for another hour, which was absolutely wonderful. After thanking our hosts and saying goodbye to their adorable dachshund, we set off on some quiet dirt roads… only to get drenched by the last bit of the storm. I can’t decide if the worst part was soaking wet sneakers or mud crunching in all my gears, but thankfully everything dried out pretty quickly. Most of today’s ride was on decent bike paths and side roads through eastern Michigan. We caught a great tailwind into Algonac and made good time until I got another flat. Not to brag, but it’s my fourth flat, and now I’m in the lead among our group. We used our future-surgeon skills to remove a shard of glass and a piece of metal wire that had poked through my tire, so hopefully this new tube will last a while. At l...

 Lainsburg>>Oxford, MI Hey y’all! Rogan back at it. This morning we woke up at it was already hot out. We had a 65ish day from the state park we camped at to a very exciting warm showers. The beginning miles were pretty uneventful, but once it got to around 11am the heat was all we could think about. It was super humid, so the hot air just stuck to you with no shade to cool you off. Another thing, I don’t think I have ever seen as much road construction as I have in Michigan - I mean it was like once every ten miles. Thankfully there were some conveniently places bike paths that allowed us to bypass most of the road detours and continue on our slow crawl to Oxford. The thing I remember the most was around mile 50, it was so hot and had become so hilly on these gravel roads that we had to seek shelter to cool off. We got into a AC’ed gas station/subway combo. And oh my god I have never felt more relief than stepping into that store. We all chugged ice cold gatorades and water,...

 8/4/23 This morning we were eager to leave the unfurnished basement apartment that smelled like cat pee. I shouldn’t complain about free lodging, especially when it poured all night, but it was a pretty weird scene. We were immediately biking through busy Albany roads which is a tough way to start the day. We made our way to the pedestrian ramp that would take us across the highway bridge, but when we got there we were met with a gate and signs saying “do not enter” and “walkway does not continue”. Luckily the detour was short and we biked between concrete barriers across the bridge. I have to say, Albany has not been my favorite stop! Since we left the apartment without eating, we stopped at Dunkin for breakfast. Not our first choice, but it worked out well. We ended up sitting there for about an hour eating and trying to differentiate the types of racquet sports.  We then spent another hour outside of the Dunkin trying to fix Kayla’s derailleur. After some heavy duty hosing...

 Day 58: 8/3/2023 Today woke up at lock 16 on the Erie Canal… beautiful free campsite but no water :/ Since we have been so fascinated by the locks on the canal, this was sort of an exciting place to sleep!!! Or it would have been if we didn’t arrive so late almost in the dark the night before. Anyway, it was quiet and no one else was camping in the area. We had enough water to cook breakfast (oatmeal of course) and then we then went to stewart’s shops. This was very nostalgic from my college days when one of the only establishments in the small upstate new york town was a stewart’s shops. We filled up our waters and went to the bathroom- kayla and I also got food that we were going to need for the rest of the trip. We got right back on the canal trail and headed east. Thankfully most of the trail was paved. We were all feeling a bit sluggish today… not sure if it was the string of long days we just accomplished or if it was the dreary weather but neither were helping that’s for su...

August 2nd: Fayetteville to St Johnsville  This morning we woke up at my grandparents house, after a wonderful relaxing day spent hanging out with them. My grandpa made us all a breakfast of eggs and bagels to get us well fueled for the day. They also made sure to give us lots of snacks for the road, then we were off. My Grandpa escorted us, by minivan,  to get back on the Erie Canal trail. He drove slowly in front or behind us with his hazards on while we biked and it was fun feeling like we were important people with a support car. At the trail we parted ways and then biked for a little l while along the bike path. Before long we saw grandpa again! He had dropped off my grandma and come back along the trail to wave us on. We took the opportunity to stop for a snack break. As I was biking away I biked straight into a Boulder! It turns out no amount of days can make me less clumsy! But I managed to stay upright and we biked a little while longer. Then there was grandpa again u...

  Grand Rapids to Owasso, MI Today we woke up in a hotel in Grand Rapids michigan. We were super thankful to be in a hotel because yesterday the storm soaked us to the bone! Every single layer was soaking wet when we got in. So that warm shower, laundry, and roof over our heads was essential. Unfortunately this hotel didn’t have complimentary breakfast, which we usually ransack in order to stock up on food for the next day or two. So instead we just grabbed something from a convenience store. With much sunnier weather than yesterday, we hit the road. The first town we came upon was Ada and it was an adorable picturesque lake town. There was a grocery store, bike shop, coffee shop, AND donut shop all next to each other so we got all our errands done right there! Olivia’s bike was checked and the mystery of her 3-flats-in-one-day was solved by finding a pokey thing stuck in her wheel frame. After, we cheers donuts and ate them in about 3 whole seconds. We continued on the route and c...

Madison to Milwaukee- At the beginning of Minnesota, the strong antibiotics that I was on for my MRSA/spider bite/whatever the hell it was, were really taking a tole on me. After many days of trying to push through Rogan and I decided that it was best if we took a bus to Madison WI to be with my cousin Kevin and his amazing wife Emmy while I finished the course. When we got to Madison I almost immediately had an allergic reaction to the antibiotics that caused a full body rash! (Everything is completely healed up now btw  🤪 ) All of this backstory is to say that I was truly very excited to be feeling better and to be getting back on the road with everyone. We had an amazing breakfast in Madison, and then said a bittersweet goodbye to Kevin and Emmy, and then we were off! The ride from Madison to Milwaukee was almost all bike path which was such an amazing treat. We wove through wooded parts of the path that would open onto expanses of farm land, with birds flying by the whole way....

Milwaukee to Grand Rapids-  I can honestly say that nothing has ever disgusted me more than hearing my alarm go off at 4am after biking 90 miles in the heat the day before. The purpose of this 4am alarm was so that we could make the 6am ferry that went from Milwaukee WI to Muskegon MI. We got all packed up and out of the hotel at a cool 4:45am and biked the six miles to the port. Once we got on the ferry we all immediately crashed and enjoyed the two hours of sleep we were able to squeeze in. When we got off the ferry I noticed that my bike tire wasn’t holding air very well. I decided that I should change the tube and see if that works. After that whole procedure we got on a very flat and straight forward bike path that took us out of Muskegon and into some smaller towns. And that’s when the storm rolled in. The rain started coming down in sheets and it looks like something out of a movie. We were all immediately soaked and wondering if we should try to set up a tent in these monso...

Today we go to Madison! We started this morning with a big downhill (one we unfortunately had to end with last night). We stopped at the camp store for some egg Sammies and were so happily surprised to find the camp host was not going to charge us for them! He also gave us little flashlight souvenirs -- awesome people. We spent the first 10 miles on lovely bike trail, which ended right as we got to Reedsberg. Unbeknownst to us, we were about to encounter the steepest grades we had all trip. It was about 2 hours it felt like of steeeeeep uphill, and similar downhill. And it was hot. Once things flattened out a bit we soon found ourselves in Sauk City, where we stopped of course for a beer and some sandwiches at a local brewery (Vintage Brewing -- I recommend the Po' boy and the key lime wheat ale!). About 28 miles later, we arrived in Madison!! Just as we were pulling up to our stay, we reunited with out besties Rogan and Olivia and had dinner with Olivia's AMAZING and oh so kin...

  8/1/23 Rest day today!  This morning, I almost forgot I was biking cross country. I woke up at 10am and made my way downstairs to the Dorfmans all sitting outside reading. We had some croissant breakfast sandwiches and coffee. It was slow and relaxed and it felt amazing. Thank you to the Dorfmans (Keelin’s friend’s family) for having us! Yesterday, we had discussed biking the 15 miles from the Dorfman’s house in Syracuse to Kayla’s grandparent’s house in Fayetteville. This morning, getting back on the bike seemed pretty unappealing, so I was happy when we decided to get a ride instead.  Wendy was so kind and took us (Keelin and me) to Mellow Velo bike shop for some tubes and energy gus before dropping us off at Kayla’s grandparent’s house. Kayla had spent the previous night with her grandparents, it felt weird to be apart! Today, we’d be spending our rest day with Kayla’s grandparents, Ralph and Felicia, at their house. They were so caring and welcoming. Unfortunately, ...

 Day 55: 7/31/2023 We woke up in the morning to a lovely greeting from Lily the dog… sooooo excited that the guests from last night were still here !!! We got ready and had a fabulous breakfast prepared by Kayla’s friend’s partner David … basically our personal chef this morning!!! We got on our way shortly after and stopped in Pittsford at the flagship Wegman’s grocery store. For anyone that doesn’t know Wegman’s you need to make a trip to upstate new york!!! It made me so nostalgic for the times my soccer team at St. Lawrence used to go to Wegman’s after games in the Rochester area. We got some snacks and stood in awe inside for a moment and then headed on our way to Syracuse via the Empire State trail that follows the Erie Canal. At about 11 am, we were met with a short burst of very hard rain. We took shelter for a few minutes and then continued on… unfortunately the trail on this part of the route was gravel and dirt winding through the trees…. This means that we were very qui...

July 30th : Welland, ON to Rochester, NY Since I have gotten so far behind on writing my blog posts I have decided to try to catch up by using voice to text to write this post while riding my bicycle along the erie canal trail in New York. Since I kept the microphone on while we chatted about our Canada review you will find that interspersed throughout this post are the other random things that come up while cycling. So here it goes:  Our last day in canada started at the home of our warm showers hosts, Sandi and Jeff. While Jeff helped me map out the the best route to Niagara Falls, Liz and keelin ate their breakfast. When I went to check on my breakfast I found that I had burnt my bagel (the last bagel they had) to a crisp. Fail #1 for Kayla for the day. Luckily I was able to make some toast and wasn’t going to go hungry. Next I headed out to the garage to finish packing up my bike. Jeff, having heard about my saddle issues, had graciously gifted me a gel padded saddle cover to s...

We woke up for an early morning in Winona MI, today was the day we officially crossed into Wisconsin, and left Minnesota for good! We crossed the Mississippi for the 5th (and last) time this trip, and followed the gps eastbound. Not 10 miles in the GPS instructed us to follow a dirt road... A pattern we had become quite weary of throughout this trip. Nonetheless, because it was marked as a state trail, we gave it a go (not that we had any other options. Before long, we were on beautiful packed dirt riding through what looked like the countryside from pride and prejudice. This path we were on ended up lasting ALL DAY. We were going to land in Mauston, WI, but decided to continue following the trail as far as we could go, which ended up being a town called Wonewoc and a campground called calapral campground - not without it's complications though. Around 11:30 am, we stopped in the cute little town of Onalaska and Audrey picked up some new tubes after a flat leaving Minneapolis (some...

Our plan for that day was originally to make it to bay City campground, 58 miles from the REI. While it did seem excessive, it most cerywas not impossible. However, some unforgiving roads resulted in a tumble for Audrey, and some uncooperative panniers that kept hopping off. Lastly, and certainly not least, her back tire decided to give out. Halfway through Cha going that flat, we decided we could not do 58 miles that day, and instead found a nice campground called St. Croix Bluffs about 34 miles from the REI. We put that as our new destination and set off. Eventually, we made it onto some really lovely bike paths that did not run adjacent with roads (my favorite kind), and even got to ride along the Mississippi for a while. Without even trying, we found ourselves back on the MRT. At this point it felt like the MRT was following us, not the other way around ;). We found our way onto some county roads and eventually came up upon a little farmers market. Everyone there was equally perple...

We started out this morning in our favorite way, by going absolutely bananas at the continental breakfast and stashing lots of food for lunch. I think I made like 10 pancakes in total. They had one of those machines where you just press a button and a pancake like magically starts getting made on a cute little conveyer belt. Love those things. We were sad to set off without Rogan/Olivia. Olivia was needing a few days off after toughing it out on antibiotics for over a week, and we're going to take a bus to meet us in Wisconsin. The morning was pretty smooth rolling, as we took a bike path the first 20 miles until we reached St. Cloud. We then randomly started chatting with this older gentleman who started telling us about a bike route that took you all the way from St cloud to Minneapolis... We were intrigued. After getting spoiled with bike paths over the last two days we started to reconsider our route for the day. Instead of heading north of Minneapolis to Dalbo, should we just ...

 Hello everyone! This is Olivia here. As the blog poster for team 2 I apologize for all of the delays with our blogs!!! I had some health issues that are all behind me now, but it meant that I fell behind on posting blogs. From now on we will try to stay caught up, and stay tuned for many back logged blogs :)

7/29/23 Port Ryerse to Welland, Ontario This morning we woke up in our lovely cabin to more rain. It’s pretty hard to leave someone’s home when you have to bike in the rain, so we didn’t! Our hosts, Jamie and Heather, were worried about us biking out in the rain and offered to let us wait it out with them. As we waited for the rain to stop, Jamie drove us to Soley’s to pick up groceries. We left with some lunch supplies, Canadian candy bars, and pediatric oral hydration packets (the closest thing we could find to Liquid IV).  Back at their house, Jamie and Heather pulled out an atlas so we could look at our route. It’s crazy to see how far we’ve come and in that moment I felt pretty proud of us. Heather also made us some delicious Finnish pancakes.  It was about noon when the rain lightened up and we decided to leave. Before we left though, I took Jamie up on his offer to hold Lenny the red tailed hawk. Jamie, Heather, and their sons are all big falconers and so they have bird...