Erie Canal Day 10: Finished!

49 miles today/420 miles total

What a finale!

We had a comfortable stay at the Amsterdam Castle last night.

The guest rooms weren’t nearly as quirky as the rest of the place!

This is the dive bar where we ate the bizzare hot dogs and drank last night. After a couple of rounds, Bob started dancing… and it wasn’t that sort of bar! I had to get him out of there quickly!

We hit the trail early because EVERYONE we met told us we must have an egg sandwich at The Hungry Chicken. It was 12 miles down trail, so we didn’t waste any time getting to breakfast!

The Hungry Chicken was everything we were told it would be. No frills, just a great egg sandwich.

The birthday boy ordered “The Widow Maker”.

We sat and watched the Boeing Starliner launch while we ate. So thrilled that it went well for NASA and Boeing and proud that we and our colleagues at WSTF had a hand in testing of the propulsion systems many years ago.

With a long day of riding ahead and very full bellies, we pressed on.

To say the trail was hilly today would be an understatement ! But the toiling uphills were followed by gleeful downhills! It was beautiful and forested for much of the day, but as we approached Albany, we had some street travel. As with everywhere else on this trip, we’ve had very good experiences with vehicles on the road.

We passed by a GE research facility that easily could have been the inspiration for the creepy lab in Stranger Things.

One of the best parts of today happened as we were passing a Naval Nuclear Research Facility (just beyond the Stranger Things lab). A guy in business attire was taking a lunch break outside. When he saw us he jumped up and said “Buffalo?!” When we said yes, he started whooping and cheering for us and congratulated us on our last day on the trail! It made us so happy!

We made it to downtown Albany a bit earlier than our check in time, so Bob found us a fantastic bar called the City Beer Hall.

They served FREE pizzas to anyone who ordered a drink. Lunch!

Our apartment in Albany… I don’t know where to begin. It’s spectacular! It’s the bottom floor of a historic townhome. It’s right downtown. Tastefully decorated by the owner/artist.

It feels like an eclectic art museum and it’s certainly more than we expected!

Our private parlor

One of the bedrooms. We love places like this!

We dined at a lovely place around the corner from the apartment, Dove + Deer. We desserted at an Ax Throwing bar that serves boozy ice cream. No axes were thrown.

“What a great day”, said the Birthday Boy.

We’re going to take a blog break for a few days and enjoy Albany. We’ll take an Amtrak back to Buffalo in a few days and we may do another segment of the Erie Canal Trail that leads from Buffalo to Niagara Falls (just a day trip) before heading home.

Happy Birthday to the best friend and travel partner a girl could ever dream of having!

Looking forward to catching up with friends in a a few days and giving Tycho all the love she can handle!

Good night everyone!