I'm back in the USA. I rode over the Peace Bridge to Buffalo, and met up with my friend Jim at the Holiday Inn Express downtown. Jim stays at Holiday Inn Express for his job all the time, so he has lots of points for free rooms. It's so fancy.
The downside is I can see myself clearly in the brightly lit bathroom mirror, and I have discovered that I have tan spots on my head where sun shines through my bike helmet to go with the pale stripes where the helmet straps go.
It was a short day, only 46 miles, with only one climb to get back on top of the Niagara Escarpment. My plan was to take my time getting going and to let my tent dry out, since I won't be using it again. But at 6:00 AM, I wake up to the sounds of gunfire off in the distance. What the hell. And then there is rumbling. Maybe there is a military base nearby and the rumbling is some kind of munitions drill?
But the rumbling continues, and gets louder and more frequent. I open the phone, which doesn't even have LTE coverage, just one bar of HPSA 3G, and wait five minutes for the radar map to load on Weather Underground. It is thunder, there are massive storms all over to the south of me. But none where I am. Yet.
So I quickly pack up and get going. Since I am in a more developed area now, and in Canada, there will always be a perfect place to shelter from any rain storm within 5 miles or less.
Coffee and donuts requirements met, no rain yet. In fact it is starting to clear up.
After another 10 miles and a big climb back onto the Niagara Escarpment, I am on a bike path along the Niagara River, and it's all bike paths and super-low traffic riverfront parkway the rest of the way to the Peace Bridge to Buffalo.
And it goes right by Niagara Falls.
Now my bike and I have visited both sides of Niagara Falls. The view is way, way more impressive from the Canadian side.
The route from Buffalo to Niagara Falls is also way better, flatter, and much less traffic on the Canadian side than riding through Grand Island on the American side.
It's 20 more miles to the border crossing, and I have about $80 of Canada money to get rid of. I decided to eat lunch right before I crossed at this Thai restaurant in Port Erie.
It's much better than it looks on the outside.
At this point, I have $40 Canadian left, so I decide to go for the obvious, logical choice for bike touring, which would be to buy booze at the duty free shop.
Would you believe that the Duty Free Shop WILL NOT SELL ANYTHING TO PEOPLE ON BIKES? Seriously? I couldn't believe it! Apparently, they think I could just turn around and go back where I came from instead of riding over the bridge to the United States.
So I'm leaving the Duty Free shop, full of disappointment, but with my Canada money converted to America money at a really, really bad exchange rate, and the Canadian Border Patrol car pulls me over.
Officer: "Did you just come from the Duty Free Shop?"
me: "Yes. Would you believe they WILL NOT SELL ANYTHING TO PEOPLE ON BIKES?"
Officer: "Seriously?"
me: "Apparently, they think I could just turn around and go back where I came from instead of riding over the bridge to the United States."
The CBP officers thought I had just ridden over from the United States somehow, but I explained how I got there (cutting through a park to get to the Duty Free Shop) and they were super helpful. It turns out you are not allowed to ride a bike on the traffic lanes on the Peace Bridge, and it is extremely not obvious how to get to the very nice bike lane. They put their flashers on and lead me to the bike lane, which leads to a special bike entrance to the US Border Patrol office.
I don't have any pictures of this, because my phone battery was dead at that point. No picture of the border boundary in the middle of the bridge, and no picture of Lake Erie. Getting to Lake Erie means I've ridden my bike next to all five Great Lakes on this trip. The backup phone I'm using is an ancient Pixel 4, that had been sitting in a drawer for 5 or 6 years. And I couldn't charge it overnight at the campground yesterday.
Once I got to the Holiday Inn Express, it was only 2:00. Jim stayed there the night before. He got to Buffalo with his bike by doing a one way car rental, for only $240! So I got my phone charged up and spread my tent, which was soggy with dew out to dry, and reorganized my gear. Since there will be no more camping, I can send the camping gear home along with the two front panniers at the nearby UPS store.
I learned that my camping gear and the two panniers weigh 19 lbs 4 oz. I learned when we rode the train up that all my gear together on the bike weighs 60 lbs when I consolidated it all into a duffel bag to check as baggage.
Buffalo has some really great murals.
For dinner, we had a must-do culinary bucket list item to check off. This is the Anchor Bar.
Where Buffalo Wings were invented!
Are they as good as Daniel's? It's very, very close. They taste the same. If you go to Daniels when they are not busy and the wings are fresh out for the fryer, Daniel's is actually better executed. But not when Daniels is really busy, and they are serving wings they cooked earlier. These were a little soggy, like the grease was not hot enough. But they were really, really good.
Obviously, you can't say Daniel's wings are more authentic than the Anchor Bar, but I discovered that the Anchor Bar sells their own wing sauce!
I suspect this is just repackaged Louisiana Hot Sauce, but I am a little suspicious.
On the way home, we had some more beer at the Big Ditch Brewing Company, which is the biggest craft brewer in Buffalo. Very tasty.
Big Ditch is a reference to the Erie Canal, which terminates here.
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