Sept 3 Day 2

Today, we head from Corning NY to Auburn MA. This will set us up for a fairly easy drive to the Bar Harbor Maine area on Sunday.

Our hotel for last night was right next door to the Corning Glass Works Museum. Here is a shot of the Museum, just across our parking lot.

Below is a shot of the main entrance to the Museum. Wanting to get on the road, we did not take time to visit.

We traveled through a section of NY with a group of military vehicles. Not sure what they were up to, perhaps they were headed toward Vermont to help clean up the mess that Irene left behind? We did see a number of Red Cross Disaster Recovery vehicles heading east as well, along with tons of vehicles with lift buckets for doing tree and electrical work.

We were originally going to include Vermont in this trip, but Irene really had a huge impact in that state. It is reported that over 200 roads in Vermont are still closed due to flooding. It was also reported that 12 cities within Vermont are basically islands, only accessible by boat or helicopter. Unfortunately when I investigated, our route plan was going to take us through 7 of those cities :( A call to the hotel where we had a reservation indicated that the hotel was open for business. The hotel representative did indicate that we should plan on bringing our own food, as most of the businesses, including restaurants were closed. With the road closures, our route would be difficult, and I had no intentions of carrying my own food on the bike, so Vermont was OUT. :) Fortunately, we have already biked in Vermont, so there is no gap in our attempt to cover "new" states on this trip.

A couple of hours into the day, we had a need for gas. So, a few button pushes on the GPS, and we exit in Schenevus NY, a tiny little town with one gas station. A number of folks in the neighborhood were having yard sales. This fellow was selling his wares and tanning (or perhaps just sleeping) at the same time.

Our trip today also took us across the Hudson river in Eastern NY.

Here are a couple of shots of the bridge, and the Hudson River below. The water levels did not appear to be abnormally high, although the water looked really muddy.

We make the Massachusetts border, our first state on this trip that we have not visited previously on the bike.

A quick stop for a late lunch on the Mass turnpike, then it was on to our hotel for the night in Auburn, about 40 miles or so west of Boston.

Tomorrow we will pass through New Hampshire on our way to the Bar Harbor area of Maine. On Monday we will spend the day in Acadia National Park. Let's hope for a few days of good weather.

We covered 337 miles from Corning NY to Auburn MA, taking our trip total to 595 miles. Below is a map of the route from today.