Bishop Bike Adventure Day 53 August 22, 2010

What a joy to find a church and arrive on time for the service! That started our day out right and from there we headed to Orchard Park, New York where there is the Pedaling History Bicycle Museum. It is closed on Sundays but here is a shot of Tim in front of it as we headed towards Buffalo and onto Niagara Falls for the afternoon.

Riding into Buffalo was similar to leaving Cleveland a few days ago. The streets were virtually empty (since it was Sunday) making travel through there quick and easy. We had ample opportunity to look at the decaying city around us. There was a mixture of ram shackled houses and apartment buildings and some ratty looking industrial areas as we entered downtown Buffalo. Once again we could see a stark contrast between the quality of living environments within the same city.

The border crossing was relatively seamless. We had to walk our bikes over the bridge, pictured here, from the U.S. to Canada and then up to the customs station alongside the cars and trucks also traveling to Canada. The advantage of walking our bikes over the bridge was that we were able to get some photos of the city of Buffalo, Lake Erie, the Niagara River, and the surrounding area. These two shots below show Buffalo and Lake Erie. We showed our passport/passcard and our driver‘s licenses, answered a few questions and were on our way to Niagara Falls on the Canadian side via a wonderful road along the Niagara River, bordered by nice views of the river on one side and lovely homes for miles on the other side.

We could see the mist from Niagara Falls as we rode along a bike path that approached the Falls. Part of the bike path actually went out into the Niagara River. The photo below shows Debbie about to enter this path. It is amazing that the only drops of water we felt all day were from the mist created by the Falls, even though it was overcast for most of the day.

Between the two of us, we took over 140 pictures for the day- so narrowing down our selections for the blog was quite a challenge!! There are a few shots of the Falls shown below for your viewing pleasure!

In addition to the bike ride to Niagara Falls we also enjoyed a night with a full moon and fireworks over the Falls. We had a late night dinner at an Italian restaurant that had a live band and we walked the streets of Niagara until after midnight when everything seems to shut down reluctantly for the night.