Another day of perfect weather for a short 58 mile ride to Utica, New York. Our SAG was at Circle K. Nothing terribly strange was afoot, but I’m running out of time to use that title.

Yesterday was a fine ride along the Erie Canal.

We visited the small Erie canal museum and a restored segment of the canal which includes an aqueduct. It’s basically a multilayered wooden trough which carries the canal over a creek below.

Manicured lawns are a big thing here, too. It amazes me how much effort people put into maintaining these lawns.

Today we saw more canal as well as Greystone Castle in Canastota, New York. The actual history of the “castle” is less interesting than the name suggests. It was built as a grand stone church in 1909 after the wooden church on the site burned down. In the 1960s it stopped being used and fell into major disrepair. It was purchased and renovated in 1995 and given the name Greystone Castle. It’s used for wedding and other events.

We discovered that Utica has quite the restaurant scene. Chad and I were on our way to a Yemeni restaurant when we were stopped by the smell of barbeque from a food truck in a park. They were setting up for a weekly farmers’ market (oddly they were just setting up at 2 pm). I had a grilled half chicken, reminiscent of my college days when Al and I would go to half chicken night at one of the cafeterias and split our halves, Al taking the white meat and I the dark. Chad, however, had a pork sandwich.

Tomorrow is our last century, riding 102 miles downhill to Troy, near Albany.