October 1, 2022 - Cincinnati, Oh to Niagara Falls, NY

 October 1, 2022  - Cincinnati, Oh to Niagara Falls, NY

Today we started our trip to the New England states.  There were 3 couples that were supposed to ride but because of the hurricane, Ian, that hit Florida, Ken and Jenny were not able to go.  So it will be Jackie and Jamie, 

and Larry and Jean.

Temps were about 50-55 all day long.  Cloudy too.  Would have been nice for a little sun BUT no rain.  I’ll take it.

Sooo some of us had on heated gear.  Now this is a good thing but sometimes the wires are just crazy.  Check out Jackie trying to get them all in the right spot to get on the bike…they are in her hand and hanging from her jacket.  By the end of the day, she had it down.  FYI…. I too had a heated jacket… it was very nice.

So, you know you are getting old when….. you go into a restaurant

and you have to use a kiosk to put in your order.  We had a lot of fun trying to figure this one out.  If you were not fast enough, it canceled your order and you had to start over…UGH…. You put in your order, then it prints a piece of paper out with a barcode, then you have to go to a register 20 feet away and scan the barcode so you could pay, then your order actually was placed.  WHERE are the people that think this up!!!  We had a good laugh, and the food was actually pretty good.

As we go from Pennsylvania to New York, we are off the highway and on some nice back road.  There are hundreds and hundreds of acres of grapes.  We saw several wineries and a few places with the Welch name.

Fun Fact:

Every Welch’s product is made from Concord and Niagara grapes grown at family farms across the United States. Requiring the right mix of sunshine, rainfall, and cool nights, grapes can be picky about climate - so we grow in regions with the perfect conditions. Niagara is the leading green grape grower in the United States.

This got me thinking.  Are they still handpicked?  The answer is yes but you can also use a machine.

Fun Fact: 

The mechanical harvester works by driving over the row. There are nylon arms that vibrate and shake the fruit loose (shown to the right). Then a series of conveyors move the grapes to an adjacent row where they are deposited into a bin box carried by another tractor. The grapes are actually shaken right off the stems, so the bin boxes can easily exceed 1 ton of grapes each!

We actually saw one:

Got to Buffalo and saw the Peace Bridge.  This is one of the bridges you can use to go to Canada.

Made it to the American side of the Niagara Falls. 

Pretty impressive.  600,000 gallons over the falls per second.  The source of the water is from 4 of the great lakes.

The far side is on the Canadian side (not one of my pics).  Also called Horseshoe Falls:

We then got some pics at night.  They do not do it justice.  It was beautiful.

Temps: 50-55

Miles: 450