Day 6 – Rome to Little Falls, 39.4 miles

No pictures of the morning, it was pretty routine.  Get up, breakfast, pack up and roll out.  We caught a lucky break finding nice paved path leading us to the trailhead, so not as much time on the road first thing as anticipated.  We were on the trail for most of the next 15 miles when we had to make a railroad crossing.  They weren’t kidding about walking your bikes across.
After we crossed it seemed as good a time as any to stop for a few minutes.  As we were applying sunscreen and refilling bottles, a couple that was easily in their 70s passed us by on their bikes – clearly out for a few hours of riding.  Made me wonder if future Bruce and Heidi will still be going on adventures.A mile or so past this we got to cross another Lock and from there it was a few more miles into the outskirts of Utica where we passed pizza joint after pizza joint before finally settling on Burger King.  Nothing amazing, but quick and familiar at least.After the stop we were on somewhat busy streets through Utica and then Mohawk.  Folks in Mohawk were friendly.  Many waved or honked and a few even shouted greetings.  Then it was up and over a bridge and we were on NY 5s for quite awhile.  I managed to take this quick shot and thought all the boys were poking their heads out, but I guess I missed it.  I kept dreading the end of the today’s ride because I knew it came with some elevation and folks, my legs are TIRED.  I never got off my bike though and rode every single one of those hills today.  The family only had to wait for me, oh, three or four times.  My boys seems to be able to power up anything while I slowly make my way up the climbs, sometimes at 4 mph, while repeating over and over in my head “I’m still faster than a walk.”

We made it into town and got checked in – two rooms on the 2nd floor with no elevator.  That was fun.
Snapped this cute shot.  Daxton decided he needed to do some maintenance on his bike once we arrived.  He worked on it for about ten minutes before declaring it was fixed. Turns out not much is open in small towns after 5pm on a Sunday except more pizza joints.  We opted to hit the grocery store instead where we were able to get some made to order sandwiches and in a bit of a splurge and to add some fun to the evening we decided to taste test the new Lay’s Chips flavors.While all of them certainly tasted mostly like what they claimed to be, the clear winner was the truffle fries followed by the Reuben.  Now you know.  Mostly I’d say don’t waste your money on any of them.

Tomorrow is a bit longer but should be mostly trail.  Can’t believe we’ve only got two days left.  So far we’ve gone 296 miles, about a hundred left depending on how we decide to handle things in Albany.  More on that in the next update.