Northeast or Bust; Day 14

The management at the Hampton Inn in Watertown, NY sure treated us well.  Yesterday, when we were just hanging out killing time waiting for a fuel pump, the manager offered us a ride to a local restaurant for lunch.  It was raining outside and we were down one motorcycle so we took him up on the offer.  We had a LARRAPIN good lunch at the Fairgrounds Family Restaurant.  Chris and I really enjoyed the stuffed green peppers.  The guest clothes dryer was on the fritz and some of our crew had to do laundry.  They did their wash in the guest’s washing machine and then the desk clerk arranged to have them dried and folded.  The warm cookies and snack mix in the evening were good too!  Also in the evening we played some cards in the large lobby area.  We had a very good experience at the Hampton Inn.

The fuel pump arrived via UPS at about 9:30 this morning.  Gary got it installed and his Goldwing fired right up.  He was one happy camper.  Here he is holding the old worn out fuel pump.DSCN8255 (2)

We were on the road by 11:00.  It was cloudy and 54 and we were expecting rain so we all had our rain gear on.  We ended up riding through light rain off-and-on the rest of the day.

Interstate 81 took us south through Syracuse to Cortland, NY, where we had lunch at Wendy’s.  The chili sure tasted good.  Our route angled south and west down to Ithaca, NY.  Our goal there was Ithaca Falls.  We parked and walked to the falls.DSCN8257Along the way there were signs saying soil in the area was contaminated with lead.  Down near the falls we ran into some workers with a digger and orange netting blocking our access to a good pic of the falls.  I asked the guy if the orange netting was meant to keep us away from the falls.  He said that, really, we shouldn’t even be down as far as we were.  They were cleaning up the lead contamination caused by the Ithaca gun works that had been located on the rim above the gorge.  But he allowed us over the netting for pictures.

We had not crossed orange netting prior to reaching the workers but on our way out we saw the following sign that we did not see on the way to the falls.  OOPS!DSCN8258 (2) 

A man at the clean-up site suggested we see Letchworth State Park on our way to Niagra Falls.  He said it was well worth the time.  So we did some map checking after gassing up and took off in that direction.

From Ithaca we rode south and east to Elmira, NY and then north and west to Dansville, where we called it a day at Logan’s Inn.  We rode 223 miles today with a high temperature of 57 and a low of 52.

To view pictures taken today click on the following link: https://goo.gl/photos/iF4C3BxtwezLy6F89

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