Erie Canalway – Day 8 – Syracuse to Utica

We left the hotel just before 730AM. I can’t say I really liked Syracuse, although I didn’t have a lot of time to explore it. I prefer Rochester and Buffalo.

This was the view as we headed to the trail. It was pretty unappealing, although we did pass the New York Central Station. It was built in the art deco style, opened in 1936, and closed in 1962. It now houses Spectrum, a mass media company.

The trail running through this part of Syracuse is in the boulevard and has excellent crossings.

It then transitions to a smaller road with flexi posts, and then onto the trail that we’ve been used to next to the canal with lots of shade.

We stopped after 25 km in Chittenango. I liked the sign in the ice cream shop next to the coffee shop where we got coffee. We’ve definitely felt like we’ve been melting the last few days.

Just as we were going into the coffee shop I got this notification on my phone. No kidding.

We bought breakfast sandwiches with our coffee and took them with us because there wasn’t a convenient spot to buy something at lunchtime. As we got ready to leave David, Dayle and Cindy did a little routine to loosen up their shoulders.

This section of the trail has markers every mile. We also saw some basic way-finding signage. The odd thing is that I’m not sure what we are 14 and 22 miles from. It’s more than 14 miles back to Syracuse and more than 22 miles to Utica.

We saw this nice mural in Canastota.

We’ve been running into this group, riding the trail, supported by the Pocono Biking. It’s an organized tour with their hotels included, and they don’t need to carry their stuff with them during the day.

By 11 it was getting pretty hot and we stopped here to squirt some water on ourselves and have a bite to eat.

We saw this lovely mural in Durhamville.

We had a fair bit of shade today, again. Thunderstorms and hail were forecast for the afternoon, but never materialized. It seems like there was a storm here recently, though, because we did see a lot of small tree branches down.

We had planned to stop at a convenience store for cold drinks just past this lock, but there was a boat going through the lock which we watched, and we discovered a beautifully shaded picnic table, so we ate our breakfast sandwiches there, and skipped the convenience store since we had a coffee stop planned at about 75 km into the day.

In Rome, they had the outline of the rivers and canals in the pavement in front of this statue which commemorates the Oneida Carrying Place.

We stopped at a café in Rome called superofficial. The woman in front of me was ordering a Matcha super bomb and it looked refreshing. She highly recommended it so we each ordered one, and it was indeed very good.

I would recommend this café. They had cute artwork on the picnic tables outside and humourous elements in the bathroom. It’s been challenging in this heat and humidity to match the left end of the scale. The people were also very friendly.

It was tucked in the corner just passed the Capitol Theatre

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Fort Stanwix is in Rome, but we didn’t have time to linger. The aerial view which I saw on Wikipedia looks quite interesting. I wish we had had time to explore it.

I think this is the first wayfinding sign I have ever seen on the trail, showing the distance to the next town.

The trail between Rome and Utica was highly disappointing for the first part. There was quite a lengthy, single track piece and then a section with large gravel that was very jarring.

Mostly the canal goes under roads, but occasionally we have to cross the canal on the roads. There’s always a decent shoulder.

The trail improved again. At the next lock, we saw a cute boat and had to cross the canal on the lock. This is only the second time we have had to do this.

We stayed at the Days Inn, not far off the trail.

Two days ago, we wiped our panniers and bikes down because they were so dusty, but within minutes of hitting the trail again, the effort was for naught.

We thought maybe we might have to resort to McDonald’s for dinner, but the front desk clerk suggested, Babe’s, and it turned out to be an excellent suggestion. We sat on the patio, which was far enough from the road that the traffic noise wasn’t too bad, and there was live blues music. The food was reasonably good.

There was a sunset as we walked back to the hotel. The forecast for the next several days is very rainy. I spent some time creating a route on roads near the Erie Canalway for the unpaved sections in case they become too difficult to ride with the rain. We also spent some time figuring out where our food stops will be tomorrow, because we found that very helpful today.

Tomorrow we have just over 100 km to ride to Amsterdam

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