Distance covered today: 166 miles
Distance covered total: 502 miles
Estimated mileage remaining: 2998 miles (86% left to go)
An all-day rain kept me holed up in Syracuse for an extra day, but it wasn’t the worst thing in the world, as it gave me an opportunity to work on the blog as well as extended hangout time with my hosts. After being bottled up though, the main agenda for the day of my departure was speed, and I succeeded in making pretty good time to Buffalo, arriving at about 4:30 PM even after running into a couple detours along Route 20.
I’m guessing that terrain had a lot to with the day’s good progress, as I didn’t have to contend with the same hills and mountains that lay between Boston and Syracuse. The productive day and the slowly diminishing pain in my body further boosted my confidence that I’d be able to meet my goals of approximately 180-200 miles per day, especially across the topographically-challenged Midwest.
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| View of Seneca Lake from Geneva, NY. |
Despite hurrying to Buffalo, the good thing about scooting is that you still get a pretty good peek at your surroundings, even when burning across the countryside at 33 mph. For instance, I got to enjoy the ride as 20 passed through the towns skirting the northern tips of the scenic Finger Lakes. The Finger Lakes are a handful of long “finger-like” lakes gouged from ancient river valleys by the advance of glaciers in the last ice age and are a popular tourist destination in upstate New York.
After skedaddling out of Skaneateles on my scooter (sorry, couldn’t resist dropping that alliteration), I passed the pretty Victorian homes and brick downtown buildings of places like Auburn, Seneca Falls, and Geneva, stopping to take a couple pictures of Seneca Lake, with which my sister shares a name. My family made the pilgrimage to Seneca Lake on her behalf back in the day, but we’ve never made it to Bryce Canyon. Maybe that will make its way onto my hit list when I reach Utah.
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| I'd rather eat lunch at parks like this one in Bloomfield, NY than at some rest area on the highway. |
Besides terrain, the land is already beginning to change in other subtle ways, too. In fact, this seemingly unremarkable leg from Syracuse to Buffalo marks passage across one of the most important demarcation lines in this great land, but one that will be shown on very few maps. I am referring of course, to the point where carbonated beverages cease to be “soda” and start to be “pop”.
But alas, this much ballyhooed cultural divide was imperceptible. I thought that I should’ve gone around accosting the citizenry by brandishing a can of Coke in their terrified faces and screaming “What is it!? What is it!?” in order to help pinpoint the isogloss boundary (an isogloss is the geographical area in which one word or term is used), but I resisted. Maybe that would make for a good grant-funded research project someday.
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| Today I crossed into a whole new world. |
My host in Buffalo was my friend Greg from home, except you probably only know him by his streetball alias, Dance-a-thon. Anyways, upon my arrival, Dance-a-thon and I decided that we had no choice but to show some SUNY Buffalo kids know how we roll in The 518, and went to the gym to play some pick-up basketball.
After four predominantly sedentary days, it felt great to get some exercise and to reunite with Dance-a-thon on the hardwood. Given our legendary status on the punishing courts back home, it should come as little surprise that highlight reel alley-oops and violent thunderdunks abounded. Well, that’s a slight exaggeration, but the important thing is that we notched a couple victories and called it a day with an unblemished record intact. That’s how we do it in The ‘Ville!
Shout-out:
-Dance-a-thon, for the hospitality in Buffalo.
Town(s) of the Day: Skaneateles, NY; Bloomfield, NY
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