Karen Fig

Yep, called it. We were downright dripping through most of our ride today. It would have been an easy straight-shot 25 miles from our campground to Ithaca today, but we figured, hey, let's go see Finger Lakes National Forest on our way. What's another 10 miles?

Reader, those ten miles were uphill in pouring rain and dirt road. I could barely see. And for some strange reason, both of us were tired. Like we had biked 60 miles the day before or something. We turned off at the first sign of pavement and sought much appreciated refuge at a coffee shop. Decided we had seen enough of the forest and to go see Taughannock Falls instead (only 3 miles out of the way - at this point more our speed).

This was a good decision because there was a beautiful 10 mile downhill trail into town after that - a welcome change for the last of our riding.

The second cheapest hotel in Ithaca is nestled between a Walmart and two oil change shops in the most cyclist-unfriendly spot possible. We were only a couple miles from downtown but decided not to bike since even our rain gear was saturated and it was still raining. The only Lyft driver in the city was unavailable and the bus wasn't for an hour, so we got umbrellas and walked, only to get drenched (again) in our clean dry clothes by a passing car. Then, the restaurant we were heading to, one of the only ones open in town, turned us away because they were too busy. The journey to our 250 mile celebration dinner was turning into a comedy of errors. We ducked into the next open spot and our luck changed. They had two seats outside (well covered). The food was a bit fancy but extremely fairly priced. We feasted on pickled beets, fish sauce glazed brussels sprouts (some of the best I've ever had), brisket and fried chicken sandwiches, and an entire bottle of local wine, from the year of our last bike trip together (2017). The Finger Lakes are apparently the top wine producing region in the country. Given my complete lack of expertise and sample size of 1, I can confirm this!

After dinner we walked around to look at more waterfalls but it was too dark, so we just listened to them roar. It was nice. The geography of this place seems kind of dangerous for anyone in a drunken condition (lots of gorges right next to the sidewalk! The Ithaca is Gorges people weren't kidding!!) but we survived (I was the only one in danger -half a bottle of wine while tired and dehydrated took it's toll...)

By 10:30, the Only Lyft Driver in Ithaca was finally available to take us back to our comfy bed (!!) so we didn't have to brave the puddle showers again. Overall, a long but rewarding adventure of a day. More rain tomorrow. We'll see what the day off bringsRead more