St. Albans, Vermont

Total km = 515

T-storms moved through last night –thunder and a display of lightning during the night, but the morning dawned clear and warm. There is so much moisture in this eastern air that atmospheric instability seems to be the norm rather than the exception. Although the black clouds won a round in Ontario yesterday, with us having a good soaking, we won today’s round by outfoxing a thunderbanger with a change in routes at the last minute to barely skirt the edge of it. It also provided us with more country riding.

We spent all day riding through rural upstate NY as a continuation of yesterday afternoon. The house in the picture was built in 1846 (we know this because we chatted with the owner as we took its picture). This is only one example of the hundreds of huge mansion like homes we have been seeing. Having said that, we started to encounter the other extreme of the spectrum as we got further north – much poorer areas but also some very nice and tidy little towns.

The lake scene is from Lake Skandeateles, one of “Finger Lakes” (in case you are wondering it is pronounced SKIN- DE - ATTEL – ASE). Very nice ride today. Some very lovely country smells amongst some pretty bad ones as well. We even managed to be stopped by the border patrol at a road block as we rode north east along the American side of Lake Ontario – Doug said “they will just wave us through” – wrong – we were pulled over and had to show our passports! Not really sure what that was all about but no matter, we aren’t illegal immigrants so off we went.

With regard to the horse and buggy – they have highway warning signs for these! This is the second one we have seen in as many days. Not sure they were OK with us taking their picture, but here it is.

We crossed a series of bridges into Vermont at the end of the day and ended Father’s Day with a session on the webcam with Bruce, Holly and Ciaran and got to watch Ciaran running all over the living room - pretty cute, then a telephone conversation with Norma’s parents. Contacted Stu and Danielle and kids and had a nice conversation with Braxton about his day. A great way to finish the day