Lake Erie and all of its flatness.

From East Aurora (outside Buffalo) to Mayfield Heights (Cleveland) 200 miles in 2 days.
My first back to back century rides. ~650 miles deep.
Tomorrow I finally pick up a tent.

The ride through New York was so difficult, I was having a hard time thinking that this ride was going to actually be feasible. But, yesterday, I hit the shores of my first great lake sighting, Lake Erie, and that all changed. I did 50 miles before 12:30 yesterday, and slowly meandered my way down the Grape vine filled coast of western New York to the Pennsylvania border to the sketchy city of Erie Pennsylvania. covering 100 miles. by 6:30.

Today I woke up to sounds of cars and the airport (which I slept 100 yards from) in a small patch of woods that can hardly be called woods. Nonetheless, I was safe for the night, out of sight of the passerbyers. I woke early, had a cup of my cold brewed coffee from my nalgene, 2 cliff bars, and got out of there. I stopped for breakfast at a bagel shop in the first town in Ohio (after a quick photo shoot with the border sign). I walk in ask for a coffee, and 2 bagels and a lady slips between me and the register and hands the cashier the money for my breakfast and has me come sit down with her and her 2 friends (the women were all in their 40's and 50's). Ladies out for breakfast plus 1, I give them the shpeel and they quickly give me the best directions to avoid an unnecessarily long detour around a downed bridge.

Later in the day, while taking cover from a passing thunderstorm, I walked into a old gas station where I bought a candy bar and had an other miracle worker buy me a coffee while waiting out the storm.

And now, I am in the hope of one of the most generous people I've met. Treated to a shower and shrimp, and a full dinner, this once was stranger has already left me at their home while they ran some errands. This man, Sean, who is a friend, of a friend of a friend, Has already instilled more trust in me than most instill to their best friends.

There are good people everywhere. But for some reason, they pop out when the hills tuckaway into the back ground.

And as the saying goes that I leave with all those I visit, Cheers to our paths crossing again in the future.