Monthly Archives: November 2013

Day 25

We left Brad and Carol’s house at 6:15 this morning so it was still dark as we said good-bye at the Dunkin Donuts pick-up/drop-off point. I was quite content to spend the next hour or so catching up on email using the DD wifi, and the DD staff saw no problem with me doing so. Around 8 I was on the road again, intent on reaching the border.

The day went in two entirely different, though roughly equal segments, a long, straight run to the Niagara River and then a run up the river to the bridge. Coincidentally, this was exactly correlated with great walking weather on the first part and miserable rain (really the first for my trip!) on the second. It was very hard to pull out and use the camera during this second portion so most of my pictures are taken during the first half of the day.

This picture is pretty representative of the first part of the day — overcast with a long, straight, residential road.

IMG_6112

Along the way were one or two spectacular houses, including this one with a gazebo-style porch:

IMG_6113

There was one section, about a mile long, where drain sewer work was being done. This was difficult to navigate in the presence of traffic:

IMG_6115

If the work isn’t completed soon, some of the houses on that road will have hockey rinks:

IMG_6117

Coming to this street was a good sign:

IMG_6118

As usual, most leaves had fallen with a few notable exceptions:

IMG_6121

IMG_6125

I dropped into Hock’s Flower Shop to ask permission to use their restroom:

IMG_6128

these two women sympathetically agreed; this is Marie and Faye:

IMG_6126

Faye and her husband Kevin own the shop, which was originally started back in 1922 — quite old for a flower shop:

IMG_6127

They were very interested in my walk and we took several pictures of each other. They have published a few on their facebook page.

Further on I encountered a busy farmer’s market. Check out all those apples:

IMG_6129

After checking out all the stalls I drifted over to the hot dog guy, Glen, and bought a couple of chili dogs. When he heard what I was doing, he said that when he was younger he had walked from Buffalo to Detroit, 12-hour days, with a friend, wearing a dress, and that he was burned and blistered so badly at the end that his doctor could see bone when he lifted up his toes. Here’s Glen:

IMG_6130

I really enjoyed the brick color in this church:

IMG_6131

Meet, from the left, Mike, Rhys, Ron and Dan. They were curious about what I was doing (pretending momentarily that I was a security violation), so we had a good conversation about it.

IMG_6132

At that point I had reached River Road, the second half of my day; here is the Little River, a branch off the eastern branch of the Niagara surrounding Grand Island:

IMG_6135

Here’s a sign whose meaning I couldn’t even guess:

IMG_6137

At this point it started to rain — serious rain. I pulled into a park gazebo and suited up with all my rain gear, including rain pants that made it quite difficult to get out my camera. So for most of the rest of the day I have no pictures.

I did make the effort to pull the camera out for this shot of I-190 crossing over to Grand Island, since I have crossed it so many times in the past:

IMG_6140

It was a pretty intense 9 miles walking in the rain, but I pressed through. At one point I asked permission to use the bathroom at the Sunshine Cafe. They said ok; I must have looked pretty cold and soggy so they gave me a free cup of coffee.

It was with mounting excitement that I turned onto the final street leading to the Rainbow Bridge. Camera out again, I snapped this large casino:

IMG_6141

Getting closer:

IMG_6142

When I got to this intersection, right at the bridge, I thought I was done:

IMG_6143

but I then spent another 20 minutes trying to find the pedestrian entrance. It was tucked away in an obscure place with no obvious signage, and I was getting a bit worried. But then it finally appeared:

IMG_6144

Here’s the pedestrian walkway, just before I entered it:

IMG_6145

The last hurdle was a six-foot turnstile that my cart would obviously not go through. As I was mentally calculating how to break it down, hug the collapsed frame to my body while dragging the bin behind me, a kind tourist pointed to the button on the wall that, when pushed, triggered someone inside to open the gate for wheelchairs. Doh.

The view from the center of the bridge was spectacular:

IMG_6146

And so I entered Canada, after 25 days of walking:

IMG_6147

I have to confess to being a little weepy at this point, I suppose mostly from relief but also just from a deep sense of accomplishment, and perhaps a little nationalism related to my Canadian roots.

The border guard, Carter, wouldn’t let me take his picture, but enjoyed my answers to his questions. Where are you from? Scotch Plains, New Jersey. How did you get here? I walked. It was a great, happy moment, and he shared it with me.

As I walked out to the street I was greeted by my two sons, Peter and Matthew and my dear brother-in-law, Russ; I had been delayed on the other side, they had been delayed in traffic, and we all arrived at the same time at that spot. It was a frantically happy reunion. Carter came out and helped us take photos, but I forgot all about my camera until it was too late, so I have to include the following picture, which even with the help of my technical guru Matthew, could not be made rightside up:

IMG_1157a

If it were the right way up, that would be Russ, Matthew, me and Peter from left to right. Here is one of just me in that wonderful moment:

IMG_6152

The three of them whisked me off to Niagara-on-the-Lake to lovely accommodations and a fabulous dinner and I will have to tell you about that tomorrow because I’m so tired now.

Day 24

This morning I was pretty down. I have a little cold and some chafing, I was uncomfortable last night, and when I looked out the window this morning it was dark, windy and lashing with rain. But it turned out to be my best day yet, in terms of distance!

By the time I left the rain had let up but the winds were still high. The roads were still wet and I discovered within a few seconds that I needed to be on the right side because the winds were drenching me with truck spray:

image

Note that the sky has a little promise of some sunlight. The rain in the night took down many of the remaining leaves, but the wind was quickly drying up the road:

image

Everywhere I looked to the side of the road was water:

image

I came across Kutter’s Cheese Factory and suddenly had a craving for some smoked gouda:

image

Across the road was a gas station. I asked to use their bathroom but was told it didn’t work very reliably. This turned out to be related to a construction project going on just outside the station where I met these two fine gentlemen:

image

That’s Bruce (on the left) and Wendover. Normally I don’t use last names in this blog, in order to preserve a little privacy. But Wendover gave me permission to use his full name, which is Wendover Cory Neefus IV — magnificent!

They are engineers leading this waste treatment project. Wendover claimed that Bruce was legendary but they both looked legendary to me.

All of this occurred just as I was about to pass under I-90:

image

This is a road we have driven countless times back and forth to Toronto and I’m sure we never noticed this place where Route 5 passed underneath. I believe this is the fourth time I have intersected with one or the other of our two standard driving routes between NJ and Toronto.

This picture of the sky is representative of the day; bits of sun mingled with heavy dark cloud:

image

This stream was quite active, probably from all the rain last night:

image

OK, Kaboodles is hiring cooks that are expert? experienced? expatriates? experimental? …

image

Finally I reached a milestone — saying goodbye to Route 5, which I began on Monday morning; this looks back to the nondescript intersection:

image

Nice barn and silo almost immediately:

image

This may be the first announcement I have ever seen for a meat raffle:

image

I pulled up to a little office-type building and went inside to consult on my google maps walking direction as I was heading to some sort of path and I didn’t want to go wrong with a long back out. Lorrie and Jessica helped me out:

image

It turned out that google maps was about to take me into a gated mobile home community so it’s a good thing I stopped. Lorrie and Jessica gave me permission to walk through the property and even called down to one of the maintenance guys to ensure that the gate to the path was open.

So here I enter the community:

image

and enter a little section that is protected from the wind and still has some leaves:

image

Soon I arrived at the little gate that exited the gated community and entered this path that used to be a railway:

image

and this is what it looked like:

image

for nine miles!! I had it all to myself (saw one jogger and one cyclist the entire time). It had some pretty sections:

image

some more exposed sections where I fought just to keep the cart going against the wind:

image

and some sections that went through nice neighborhoods:

image

The news was full of stories about wind damage; here’s some that I saw:

image

image

image

Sadly the path came to a bold end:

image

Even though the road I was dumped onto (Transit Road) was busy and crowded (like Route 22 for my NJ friends), it did lift my spirits at one point with Tim standing alone and beckoning to the north:

image

A friend in NJ (Nancy) had reached out some days back to a friend of hers (Carol) who lives in the area, and as a result Carol and her husband Brad kindly offered to pick me up at the end of my walk. I arranged to meet Brad at a Dunkin Donuts, where I had time for a large cup of tea:

image

It wasn’t long before Brad arrived, we scooted down to his house and enjoyed some delicious chili together. Here are Brad and Carol with their son Aaron:

image

Each time someone makes this sacrifice to pick me up and offer me a meal and bed and drop me off in the morning, I am freshly filled with gratitude. This case is particularly sacrificial because Brad and Carol are leaving on the train early tomorrow for NYC to see their other son Josh run in the NYC Marathon on Sunday so we will have to leave especially early for my drop-off.

Just 18 miles to the border. I should easily be able to make that even though showers are predicted for the whole day. I’m excited because it is a major milestone of my journey and also because … well, I’ll tell you tomorrow, gentle readers!