Day 14: Grand Island, NY to Dunkirk, NY

Once I left Grand Island, I had to weave my way through Buffalo.  I encountered a bike path early on that paralleled the road I supposed to be taking.  When my ornery GPS told me to veer off to the left, I decided to stay on the bike path.  My next waypoint was a waterfront park and it was obvious that the bikeway was hugging the coast, so it would surely get me where I needed to go.  This plan worked great right up until it didn’t.

I came to a newly refurbished waterside park and found the only ways out were the pier that extended into the lake then ended there, and the way I came in.  Drats, foiled again!  There was a bridge there that I normally could have taken to get back on the city streets, but it was under construction and blocked off.  I had to go about a mile back up the path to get to the point where my know-it-all GPS told me to turn. 

Just as I was re-crossing the bridge to reach the mainland, I encountered another long-distance cyclist about to make the same mistake that I had.  I warned him that it was a dead end, and this seemed to put him at a loss as to where to go next.  He asked if I was headed south, and when I told him yes, he asked if he could follow me.  This struck me as odd, but I had no objections.

My new riding companion introduced himself as Bill.  He was a retired railroad brakeman and a veteran cyclist with many long distance tours under his belt.  On this trip, he was going from West Point, New York to Iowa, where he was going to visit with family.  Bill had the same model GPS as I did, but he didn’t know how to use it.  The only map he had was a gas station variety roadmap of New York that didn’t have quite the level of detail usually needed for biking.  But, he wasn’t under any time constraints, so it didn’t really matter to him how long (or how many miles) it took to find his way.

Bill had some leftover Canadian money and needed a new inner tube, so he asked if I could keep an eye out for a money exchange place and a bicycle shop.  We chatted as we worked our way through the city, and I found that having a traveling partner provided a significant distraction.  This was good and bad.  It was bad because you have to be twice as alert in the city than anywhere else (road conditions are worse, drivers are worse, and everything else is mostly worse in the city, too).  But, on the bright side, we knocked out 20 miles in what felt like no time at all.  Conversation keeps you from focusing on the million little things that make the minutes tick by slower.

Upon successfully escaping Buffalo, we ended up on the road Bill had been hoping to get to when we met.  When our routes diverged, we said our goodbyes and went our separate ways.  During this trip, I keep being reminded of that concept of “single-serving friends” from Fight Club.  You meet someone, get to know them, then never see them again.   What could be better?

All the hills waited until the end of the day to present themselves (as they are wont to do).  As I approached Evangola State Park, my camping destination for the night, I began marking possible restaurants for dinner and timing how long it would take to get to them from the park (Mickey Rat’s Beach Club was in the lead, even though it wasn’t the closest). 

I got to the park and was greeted by a sign that assured me tent sites were $15.  A bit too high, in my opinion, for a no-water/no-electric/no-tent pad site, but after paying $28 at KOA the night before it was a tolerable rate.  The nice girl at the office marked all the unreserved sites on a map for me (which was most of them) and sent me off to pick a spot, set up, and come back to pay.   

When I returned about 45 minutes later she rang me up and asked for $26.78.  What happened to $15?  She explained there was a $4 weekend tax (Friday night and all), a $5 out-of-stater tax (me being Massachusetts scum and all), plus a $2.78 tax tax.  I was about to grit my teeth and submit to New York State’s neat little scam, then the thought occurred to me that I had paid almost that much for the KOA site, and it had WiFi, laundry, swimming pools, and movie stars (I can only assume).  All the New York State park was offering was a gloomy bathroom and a curtain-less shower.  I tucked my money back into my wallet and told the nice girl with her hand out that I’d find somewhere better for that price.

I went and decamped, then tried to figure out where I was going instead.  The closest option I found was a hotel I could use my reward points at for a free night’s stay about 11 miles away.  I wondered if I’d been too hasty about refusing to submit to the NY State fleecing.  It was too late, I had to make a stand for cheapskates everywhere.  What I couldn’t understand was why set your state park rates to discourage weekend visits and punish out-of-state tourists?  Shouldn’t the mission of the park service be to encourage people to come use their facilities?  And, most especially, bring in tos juicy tourst dollars from other states. The tent loop was still 70% unoccupied at 6 PM on this Friday night – so their policy of dissuading people from coming to the park was working like aces.

I’m sure when I left in a huff, the Park Service immediately began to re-evaluate their misguided price gouging practices.  Luckily, I still had enough energy to cover the extra 11 miles despite my growling belly.  The only problem was that when I reached the 12-mile mark and there wasn’t a hotel anywhere to be seen.  I consulted my oh-so-smug GPS and it told me I had another six miles to go!  The 11 mile estimate had come from the hotel locator software and must not have accurately calculated my starting position.  Well, I had no choice but to press on against the cruel hand that fate had dealt me.

I reached the hotel a little before 8:00, did a quick shower dance, and hurried down to the hotel bar.  Seafood chowder, a haddock fish fry, and a pint of Southern Tier IPA were downed in record time while I watched the UFC fights with a good-natured college kid who was staying at the hotel while doing an accounting internship for the summer.  I would have liked to hang out with him longer, but I was ready to pass out (I also didn’t want to cramp his style with the sloshed cougar who kept finding excuses to come over to the bar and hit on him).

Yes, I know it would have been more practical to pay the extra thirteen bucks at the park instead of using up my much more valuable reward points, but I got in an extra 18 miles, got to stay at a nice place with a pretty marina, and had a lovely dinner that was just an elevator ride away all without compromising my irrational principles. (Yes, Ken, the sign said 2 for a dollar!)

What I Learned: Maybe the people who don’t plan everything out aren’t the crazy ones after all.

Distance Today: 75 miles (57 + 18)
Total Distance: 638 miles