Day 4 - Oswego to Fort Drum, NY - 69 miles - 3169 ft of elevation gain

Three amazing days of riding in a row… we are truly blessed! Our morning began with a great breakfast and the normal routine of packing, pumping tires, and getting the water/ice ready for the day. From the parking lot we had an uphill ride to begin the day, and the rolling climbs continued through the day. For the registered climbs on my computer’s “climb-o-meter” there were only 4, but the elevation gain figure would tell you that we were climbing more than 4 times.

Most of the day was spent on back roads that we could claim for ourselves. There is nothing like a well-paved road and zero cars. When you have nothing going but pedaling and looking around, it’s easy to start noticing themes. Today’s theme was wood lawn ornaments of sorts, there were wood cows, a man, a moose, chickens, and other creatures. Traveling by bike lets you get in touch with your surroundings, both the interesting and the gross, like roadkill and the smelly kind of road apples. We also encountered several gravel roads and roads with a fresh oil and chip coat. It was kind-of like we entered a Gran Fondo with gravel sections to keep it lively.

At one point we encountered road closure signs, and thought we could do our normal sneak through, but it wasn’t happening this time. The bridge was completely out and a big tractor was at work. This meant we had to go an extra 4 miles to go around the bridge closure. And we got to experience a real back road!

For one part of the ride, I thought we entered Michigan, because the roads got really rough. It was through the town of Watertown, so maybe that’s why the roads were so full of potholes and cracks (the water). At one stop light there was actually a cone inside the pothole (it was a small cone, but it was swallowed by the pothole). Thankfully everyone made it through without any flats or falls.

The plan when we got to the hotel was to go visit a local state park and the lake to swim, but it was too cold for swimming outdoors. We opted for laundry and bike washing. However, when we started getting ready for the bike washing the skies opened up and let the rain fall. We abandoned the bike washing plan and returned to the hotel to finish the laundry. And because everyone was tired from the 234 miles of riding, we decided to order in and make it a movie night. We got Thai food and everyone is currently in my room watching “Rescued by Ruby.” Once the movie is over, we will have devotions and head to bed for an early night. We have a “short” day tomorrow with only 57 miles.