My Birthday Bike Ride

This Saturday was my birthday. So I went for a bike ride. I started around 10 or 10:30 in the AM. I didn't check. And I wasn't wearing a watch. There are no bike paths around here like in Portland, but there are quite a few untraversed, back-country roads. So I took these. There are a surprising number of hills for a landscape so close to water. It was tiring, but I never stopped on account of the hills... only a few times to pee and once for an Amish father and daughter peddling homemade goods. I didn't buy anything because I would have had to carry it. All I had was my Camelbak. It has one pocket and that thing was maxed out. I had a wallet, a phone, a Moleskine, a passport and a pen in there. It could not hold anything else.

Oh yeah, the passport. I was biking to Canada. Kingston, to be exact. I have driven to Kingston before, but I've only taken the long way around. Apparently, there are two ferries and an island in between that make for a much quicker trip across the St. Lawrence River, by car or by bike. I Google Maps'd the route and it was the shortest distance. I rolled into Cape Vincent just in time to board the ferry. It was just over 25 miles from Sackets to Cape Vincent. The ride was about 10 minutes and cost $2. I thought it would be cheaper, since I was just on a bike. No dice.

Wolfe Island is officially Canadian territory. It is one of the Thousand Islands, after which the salad dressing is named. I had to show the border patrol my passport. They didn't check my Camelbak. I could have had anything in there! The ride across the island was very scenic and it was mostly covered by farmland. The island was also covered with gigantic wind turbines. I had to watch out for potholes during this ride. It was roughly 7 miles across the island to Marysville. I took a picture on my phone of a cool church in that town. There, I bought a Powerade and a warm cinnamon roll from a bakery.

I ate my roll on the ferry ride to Kingston. It was good. This ferry was free and absolutely packed. There were probably 50 or more cars and over a hundred people on board. I took some pictures the trip across. When I got to Kingston, I biked and walked around a little. There is a really cool shopping district kind of like Hawthorne in Portland but probably twice the size and more commercial. I would have taken pictures, but I was still wearing my bike shoes, which are cleated, making me sound like an out-of-work tap dancer, roaming the streets of Kingston. I was already attracting enough attention to myself. So I ate at McDonalds and called it a day. The ride back seemed much longer. I realized that I only had one dollar for the ferry ride back, but the guy let me on anyways. I met a nice family on the ferry back to the states. I chatted it up with them until I got back to the Cape. They offered me a ride home, but I declined. But I did accept the candy that they offered me. I got back to Sackets at about 8 in the PM. And that was that. Word. Here are the pics that I promised: