Day 30 - Of Course It's Wet - We're Going To Watertown!

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As we bid Niagara Falls goodbye, started the motorcycle for the first time in 3 days, it felt good to be back in the saddle again. The skies were looking a little cloudy, and the forecast had rain in the offing. It was 8:30 and we were excited to be back on the road, so we skipped breakfast and decided we wanted to get going and would stop along the way. So that was our mission, find a gas station as the bike only has a quarter tank of gas and find a McDonald's for a quick breakfast.

As we left the parking lot, there were no gas stations or McDonald's around as we were right next to the Niagara Falls State Park. As we turned onto the Niagara Falls Scenic Parkway, it eventually occurred to us that the reason it's called a "Scenic Parkway" is that there are no commercial business on the road. As we turned onto RT-18 which followed along the shores of Lake Ontario, we were certain that we would soon find either of our goals. There was a slow drizzle by now, nothing serious, but we knew we would soon need to break out the rainsuits. As we rode along RT-18 which is also called Lake Rd. we noticed that it was mostly farmland, with a few marina's on the lake side of the road. There were few towns and where there were, the towns were too small to have gas stations.

By now the fuel was getting dangerously low, and we were concerned about running out. At the intersection of Rt-78, we ran into a small beach town called Olcott. There was a main St with some local art shops and a few beach type food places, so surely they must have a gas station. We stopped at a little diner that seemed to have a number of locals about and asked for the nearest gas station and they said they weren't big enough to have their own gas station, and that I would have to travel inland on RT-78 about 10 miles to Newfane where they had 1 gas station on the other side of town. When I checked my phone on Around-Me, it agreed with what they said, so we headed down RT-78 for Newfane.

Sure enough, about 10 miles down the road, just past the center of town was a Kenyon's Gas Station. When I filled the tank, it took 6.2 gallons on a 6.5 gallon tank and we had gone 255.4 miles on that tank. That's the most I've ever put in the bike at once and the furthest I've gone. It was close, but we made it! The drizzle had become a little worse, so we went ahead and put on our rainsuits and we were soon glad we did. As we headed back to Olcott to resume our trip, the rain began to fall a bit harder. We had thought to stop and check out the local artist shops, but the impending rain forced us on down the road. Eventually, the sky just opened up and it began to pour. Rt-18 was a scenic road as our plan was for today had been to enjoy the scenic ride along Lake Ontario, but I was having enough trouble seeing the road in front of me, so we didn't do much lake watching.

We just kept moving along until the rain slowed down a little and we finally made our way onto the Lake Ontario Scenic Parkway which was a bit rough, but would have been scenic along Lake Ontario if we could have seen through the overcast. By the time we reached the end of the Lake Ontario Scenic Parkway and turned onto RT-104, we had mostly outrun the worst of the rain and the clouds ahead of us were looking much better. As we passed through Rochester, we realized we had come on civilization and quickly encountered a McDonald's. It was 1:00, too late for the big breakfast, but good enough for a quick lunch and both Jody and I were starving by this time.

The rest of the trip to Watertown was uneventful, we kept swapping between RT-104 and RT-3, and the scenery was nice, mostly farms and woods, typical rural upstate New York. The sky was clearing and we even had a brief glimpse of the sun. We knew the forecast for later was rain, but it looked like we might have a chance at making it to the hotel before the rain, When we turned onto the Interstate for the last 35 miles of the journey we were feeling optimistic. No such luck! With only 10 miles to go, the sky suddenly opened up and it rained the hardest it had all day. So we just bore down for the last 15 minutes and pulled into the hotel right at 3:00. We pulled under the overhang and unloaded the bike and went in to check in to the room.

By the time we made it to the room and assessed our damage, the rainsuits had worked very well. The waterproof hiking boots were the best, and our feet were dry. The bottoms of our pant legs were a little wet where the rainsuit had ridden up above our shoes. And a little at the ends of our jacket sleeves for the same reason. The back collar of my jacket was a little wet where I had not closed up the rainsuit jacket well enough, Jody's collar was fine. So all-in-all, the rainsuits worked great and we were none the worse for wear for our ordeal.

Jody went to work on laundry while I set about planning the next few days activities. By the time she finished the laundry the rain had stopped again so we could venture out and walk to the Applebee's just down the road. When Jody looked out the window, she noticed a couple of large Marmots in the parking lot and of course she had to take a picture. They just looked like oversized rats to me, just with more fur and a bushier tail. Jody does love her rodents!

Tomorrow, the plan is to head for Plattsburgh and to visit Thousand Islands along the way. Originally we were going to head north from Plattsburgh into Canada to visit Thetford Mines, the ancestral home of my great-grandfather. But between the threat of bad weather and the fact that the Garmin does not have Canadian maps, we decided to forgo Canada and spend the night in downtown Burlington, VT instead. It should be fun!

244.3 Miles Today

4577.7 Miles Total

6.172 Gallons Today

112.805 Gallons Total

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