TEXAS

Well, yesterday we did something we didn't know could be done! We rode our bikes to TEXAS. We rode our bikes right up to the TEXAS line, then we rode all the way across TEXAS and could have done it repeatedly but were on our way to MEXICO and had to keep going. Who knew there was a TEXAS, NY, or a MEXICO, NY? TEXAS is very small, on Lake Ontario and there isn't even a GAS STATION in Texas! We stopped down the road at a small bar for diet cokes, and the requisite teasing from the bartender and one customer. Even I can't believe how many bars I've been in this summer---for breakfast, lunch, dinner and afternoon snacks, too. AND, we're never alone in there, either!

I have 27 gears on my bike, and on this trip, I'm usually hanging out in about 8 of them---the middles of the middle and small chain ring. I save the other 19 gears for "special occasions" like yesterday, when the conditions were just perfect to hop into the big ring for long portions of downhills with the wind at our back, and then the granny gear for all the uphills. It was a beautiful riding day---certainly still hot, but not quite as oppressive as it has been the rest of the week. Of all the riding, with lots of chances to go downhill in the mountains---I was surprised that I logged my highest speed yesterday. I don't even know where it was that I was clipping along near 40 mph, but it happened somewhere in this hilly and gorgeous section of New York.

Sometimes, during the past week, I am amazed at how I can be speaking English and the New Yorkers are speaking English, yet we can't seem to understand each other. We need an interpreter! And, Kami told me repeatedly in Canada that the Canadians couldn't understand me, and didn't know my colloquialisms---like the day a man told me that we might not be able to get through a "closed road", but since we were on bicycles, it was a possibility. I told him thanks, and that we'd "give it a shot". He didn't seem to get that.

We've been trying to go to the movies for several weeks now. The small downtown theater is alive and well, but we have crossed over into FANTASTIC FOUR territory, and that film has a stranglehold on these markets. When we first were given the FANTASTIC FOUR option, in Michigan, Kami blurted out, "I'D RATHER SEE MADAGASCAR!!" Now she tells me. There are a lot of films out that I'd like to see, but I think we'll be waiting til Minnesota to catch them now. Meanwhile, I think about movie sets as we ride along. I've been reminded of movies in several spots along the way, and when it doesn't come to me immediately, I spend a lot of time looking around and trying to think of which film could have been made in a particular spot. For example, in Washington, I always thought of CITY OF ANGELS---the one where Meg Ryan was a brain surgeon (heh heh) and she wiped out on her bike with a logging truck. It was nice to not think about that after we rode with so many logging trucks. Then, there was a little DELIVERANCE section of Washington, some DANCING WITH WOLVES in North Dakota, and FIELD OF DREAMS in the Midwest, and a couple of horror shows along the way. I think this part of the ADIRONDACKS looks like a camping movie I saw, with grownups in a canoe. And maybe DIRTY DANCING, although that might have been the CATSKILLS.

But I digress. It's hot and getting hotter---so we're off towards OLD FORGE tonight, then we'll hit the really mountainous terrain. Maybe steeper than the initial mountain ranges, but not quite as long in the climbing.