I had a pretty good sleep, occasionally noticing the stars and probably Jupiter above. John had to get back to Jersey, and had a train scheduled for tomorrow morning. So we split up after breakfast, hoping that it won’t be another 26 years before we have another adventure together.
Route research had identified Keuka Lake as the nicest lake to circumnavigate. When I first sketched out the tour, I had planned to do that, and then head west for dispersed camping at Italy Hill State Forest. But when I took a second look at it, the trip to Italy Hill was only getting me another 20km or so towards Buffalo, and if I camped at Keuka for two nights, I could do the loop without luggage. Staying two nights meant my day 11 would be long, but I figured I’d be in great shape by that point in the tour. Nancy compares Keuka Lake to a tuning fork, which is kind of true, and the peninsula between the two tines of the tuning fork supposedly has a great lakeside road.
Unfortunately, right when John and I split up it started to drizzle. When prepping for the trip I had reminded Nancy that, unlike California, New York State has weather. Where we live, we usually have several days of warning of any rain, and predictions are usually pretty reliable. In New York, things can change. The forecast had predicted cloudy most of the day with rain coming around 6, and the weather radar didn’t show very much activity, so I was hoping it was a short-term thing.
[Narrator: It was not a short-term thing.]
West Bluff was quite nice, very low traffic and lined with autumnal trees which protected me from the rain to some extent.
After rounding the bottom of the peninsula for the return on East Bluff Drive, the conditions became less conducive, with increased traffic and fewer trees. The ride felt like more of a slog in the rain, though it was still pretty, in a gray and gloomy way. The weather kept looking like it wanted to clear up, but the rain kept returning.
The loop of the peninsula put me back near my starting point, so I had a choice to make. The ride plan for the day was for 92km; I had done the first 25km. Should I pause and wait for the rain to pass, keep on through the rain, or bail out?
I checked the weather map.
That entire line of rain was headed right up the specific valley I was riding in. It looked like it would continue for hours.
The rest of the loop around Keuka would be more like East Bluff Road; exposed, with higher traffic. I just couldn’t see slogging through four or five hours of it. And in our haste last night, John and I had failed to enjoy a celebratory beer. LyonSmith Brewing Company was a five-minute ride from where I was. The proprietor was friendly and the beer was mostly dark, which I approve of. But they didn’t have food, so after having a flight and some battery charging, I headed towards Penn Yan, the nearest real town. Found a pub for a burger and beer, watched some college football, and talked to a couple who were interested in riding the Keuka Outlet Trail (highly recommended).
The weather map still suggested that there might be clearing ahead, so I wanted to kill some more time in town. I went by the Aldi to pick up some pasta for camp dinner (many Amish/Mennonite families there). When I got out it was raining fairly hard, so I stayed in the entryway waiting for it to let up. It didn’t stop (of course), but it lessened, and I headed back over the hill towards the camp, with an idea of hitting a winery on the way. I got to Yates Cellars, fairly wet, about 15 minutes before they closed, and talked with some travellers there who were also tent camping at Keuka Lake. We marveled at the small number of tents and the large number of dogs.
I had a good chat with the winery’s owner, Alan, and enjoyed a mix of dry and sweet wines, finished off with an ice wine and a port.
Dusk was approaching, and the rain was not slackening; I went back out into it, cursing the fates. I thought about going down to the picnic shelter I had seen in the morning, just to have a place to sit out of the rain, but as I entered the park I saw two bike tourists also heading to a campsite, so decided to catch up with them and chat; they were on a bike overnight from Buffalo.
When I got back to my campsite it was pretty grim; it was soggy, and there was still no sign of the end of the rain. I hacked together a quick dinner of ravioli, cheese, olive oil and Italian spices, and pronounced it good enough. I had some prosciutto in a bag somewhere but it was hard to organize things in the rain, so I skipped it. The constant rain had formed a mud puddle right at my tent entry, so there was nowhere to leave anything that wasn’t wet or muddy. It was too depressing to think about how to get to the showers and back without getting dirty and soaked again, so I just shed my bike clothes and tried to get into my sleeping bag without bringing too much crud inside. The rain fly had held up well given the conditions, and the tent was comfy and dry.
Tomorrow, thankfully, would be another day.