My butt feels like something with large dull teeth chewed on it for three days, and here's the culprit.
It's so shiny and pretty though. I forgive it.
I went back to Canada today for yet another day of hitting the trails. This time I took Motrin before heading out, which dulled the pain in my poor backside to a dull ache. Who cares? It was another perfectly lovely day, well worth a little discomfort. AND I remembered to bring my camera. Yay me.
So, here's the view from the head of the trail. It starts where Lake Erie pours into the Upper Niagara River. I'm across from Buffalo in Fort Erie Ontario...assuming the bridge traffic is low, it's only about a fifteen minute drive from my house. Me so lucky!
There's poor little Buffalo. It's not a huge city (about 300,000 people within the city limits), but it's home. It looks kind of pretty from across the Lake. Those are hooded mergansers (those duck-dots)...I used the zoom and everything but I just couldn't get a good picture of them.
I was glad to see these four old ladies survived the terrible tree-killing snowstorm we had in October. Once they bloom, they're absolutely amazing. I love the shape of the trunks, though, which are massive by the way. If three people stand with their arms around one of those trunks, their fingertips might just meet. I'm not sure what they are...elms maybe? Beautiful old things...even when they're nekkid!
The path passes right underneath the Peace Bridge. That's the main bridge between Buffalo and Canada. The one at Niagara Falls is the Rainbow Bridge, which I won't take unless I have to because it's a crazy stinkin' tourist bridge with no soul. I love bridges...especially old ones. This one has character...there's even a shipwreck! Well...a barge kinda crashed into it about 40 years ago and is quietly rusting away just a little downriver (you can sort of see it...it's the rusty thing to the left of the bridge).
Every time I'm under a bridge, I stop and look up. Does everyone else do that too, or am I just the weird one?
More bridge. Did I mention I love bridges? Bridges! Those big lights, by the way, are to light your way as you slip past on the rapids at the top of the Niagara River, there. The current is fast and wicked...the river drops 50 feet in less than a tenth of a mile from the mouth of Erie. Keep in mind, fifteen miles downriver is Niagara Falls. So, you see, you need those lights there because you want to see where your ass is when you kiss it goodbye.
So then I loaded the bike back on the car and drove away from the Lake, because it was COLD. Seriously...you can see the ice on it still, especially on the Buffalo side. The air was a good twenty degrees cooler by the Lake.
I headed downriver and parked again, for "Bike Ride, Part Deux". The trail goes along the river (a quieter stretch of river), past some lovely homes. It's very peaceful here, and FLAT. Which is good 'cause I'm not up to my usual trekking self yet and I need the easy paths.
Before I headed off on the trail I had to pause and take a picture. To me, this is a thing of beauty.
My bike on my car means freedom and fun and nothing but good things. When I die, if there's a heaven, I hope it comes with a Volvo and a Trek hybrid bicycle on board. And plenty of paved trails. :-)
The poor trees are still so bare. Once they start blooming though, they go from pale green fuzzy sprouts to actual leaves in just a week. It's always incredible to me. The trail is sometimes a narrow path and sometimes a service road, which is great because it's wide and no one uses it (unless they're going into or out of their own driveway).
Here's where a service road feeds back into a path. It just winds back and forth like this for miles and miles...25 I think. All the way to Lake Ontario. I've never done the whole thing, it's too long. I've done chunks of it, here and there. It's lovely and seductive...once you start on it, you have to be careful to turn around before you get too tired or you can find you've wandered too far.
I'll have to go back and take more pictures when everything's green and leafy again, because it's incredibly beautiful (![[profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
moko_moko can vouch for me...I drove her along a portion of this road and she said it was all quite lovely). There are little B & Bs (bed and breakfasts) along this trail and a few cute little resort hotels (the kind with outdoor inground pools and tiny mini-golf courses that the owners built themselves)...Greg and I stayed at one once and it was SO much fun because we went everywhere on our bikes. I've been planning to do that again, maybe this summer. :-)
So, here's the view from the head of the trail. It starts where Lake Erie pours into the Upper Niagara River. I'm across from Buffalo in Fort Erie Ontario...assuming the bridge traffic is low, it's only about a fifteen minute drive from my house. Me so lucky!
There's poor little Buffalo. It's not a huge city (about 300,000 people within the city limits), but it's home. It looks kind of pretty from across the Lake. Those are hooded mergansers (those duck-dots)...I used the zoom and everything but I just couldn't get a good picture of them.
I was glad to see these four old ladies survived the terrible tree-killing snowstorm we had in October. Once they bloom, they're absolutely amazing. I love the shape of the trunks, though, which are massive by the way. If three people stand with their arms around one of those trunks, their fingertips might just meet. I'm not sure what they are...elms maybe? Beautiful old things...even when they're nekkid!
The path passes right underneath the Peace Bridge. That's the main bridge between Buffalo and Canada. The one at Niagara Falls is the Rainbow Bridge, which I won't take unless I have to because it's a crazy stinkin' tourist bridge with no soul. I love bridges...especially old ones. This one has character...there's even a shipwreck! Well...a barge kinda crashed into it about 40 years ago and is quietly rusting away just a little downriver (you can sort of see it...it's the rusty thing to the left of the bridge).
Every time I'm under a bridge, I stop and look up. Does everyone else do that too, or am I just the weird one?
More bridge. Did I mention I love bridges? Bridges! Those big lights, by the way, are to light your way as you slip past on the rapids at the top of the Niagara River, there. The current is fast and wicked...the river drops 50 feet in less than a tenth of a mile from the mouth of Erie. Keep in mind, fifteen miles downriver is Niagara Falls. So, you see, you need those lights there because you want to see where your ass is when you kiss it goodbye.
So then I loaded the bike back on the car and drove away from the Lake, because it was COLD. Seriously...you can see the ice on it still, especially on the Buffalo side. The air was a good twenty degrees cooler by the Lake.
I headed downriver and parked again, for "Bike Ride, Part Deux". The trail goes along the river (a quieter stretch of river), past some lovely homes. It's very peaceful here, and FLAT. Which is good 'cause I'm not up to my usual trekking self yet and I need the easy paths.
Before I headed off on the trail I had to pause and take a picture. To me, this is a thing of beauty.
My bike on my car means freedom and fun and nothing but good things. When I die, if there's a heaven, I hope it comes with a Volvo and a Trek hybrid bicycle on board. And plenty of paved trails. :-)
The poor trees are still so bare. Once they start blooming though, they go from pale green fuzzy sprouts to actual leaves in just a week. It's always incredible to me. The trail is sometimes a narrow path and sometimes a service road, which is great because it's wide and no one uses it (unless they're going into or out of their own driveway).
Here's where a service road feeds back into a path. It just winds back and forth like this for miles and miles...25 I think. All the way to Lake Ontario. I've never done the whole thing, it's too long. I've done chunks of it, here and there. It's lovely and seductive...once you start on it, you have to be careful to turn around before you get too tired or you can find you've wandered too far.
I'll have to go back and take more pictures when everything's green and leafy again, because it's incredibly beautiful (
moko_moko can vouch for me...I drove her along a portion of this road and she said it was all quite lovely). There are little B & Bs (bed and breakfasts) along this trail and a few cute little resort hotels (the kind with outdoor inground pools and tiny mini-golf courses that the owners built themselves)...Greg and I stayed at one once and it was SO much fun because we went everywhere on our bikes. I've been planning to do that again, maybe this summer. :-)
So yeah! My mood is much improved.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
From:
no subject
From:
no subject
LOVE the Volvo. That car kicks serious butt. I get almost 30 mpg, even with all-wheel drive.
From:
no subject
I'm envious that you were able to spend so much time outside. I enjoyed the view from our balcony, which is lovely--but we spent the whole weekend organizing our bookshelves (a Herculean task, sigh) because books had gotten completely out of control--we had books everywhere. Books stacked up in front of the shelved books because that's where they belonged, but there was no room left to shelve them. Books piled on the tops of filing cabinets, the desk, and on the guest bed, because we had run out of space to stack them in front of the books on the appropriate shelves. Ai Ai Ai. In 5 years,we went from having a little room to spare on our shelving--which we have a lot of--to having 5 boxes of books to go into storage, another 2 boxes worth we're getting rid of, and still more books than we really have space for. And my original goal was to actually organize the office itself--that is, the closet, the desk, and the stuff in boxes on the floor, but the books took too long. Next weekend will be more of the same, only this time going through the stuff in storage so that we have room for all the stuff we now need to put into storage. *Wah*
I wanna be outside.
(I'm also envious that you have a Wii. I want one, badly. But oh well, hopefully we'll be able to get one fairly soon anyway....)
From:
no subject
We're supposed to get the Wii on Wednesday. I'm re-naming that day of the week as "Wii-ness-day" from now on, in honor of the occasion. ;-)
From:
no subject
From:
no subject
The guy we got it from is out of them, but there are others right now who have them.
From:
no subject
From:
no subject
Ha, they have B & B's along the way so you can get lost on the track and have an excuse to stay overnight in a cute place.
From:
no subject
From:
no subject
From:
no subject
I remember that road! Miles of gorgeous green leafy trees, pristine lawns and sun splotches on the road. *happy happy sigh*
From:
no subject
The Erie canal is full of neat little old bridges that raise & lower & swing sideways & neat stuff like that.
You HAVE to come back for another visit!!! WQe still have to go to Toronto.
From:
no subject
I'm going to turn in my passport application in the next 2 weeks so hopefully I'll have it this summer *prays*