Day 44 - Erie, PA Rest Day

Hurray for rest days! I was ready for a day off the bike, a day to sleep in a bit, and a day not to pack up my suitcase! PC and Ingun were renting a car to drive to Niagara Falls and offered to take extra people to fill the car. Jeremy, Fiona, and I went with them. It was a little less than a two hour drive so not too bad but weird when you're used to biking all day. The falls were very impressive! We did some walking around, took a ride on The Maid of the Mist, and those with passports walked across Rainbow Bridge into Canada. Jeremy and I, not knowing we'd want passports on this trip, were unprepared and hung out at the gift shop and waited for them.

American Falls closest, Horseshoe Falls furthest. Look how small the boat looks!

I was a little challenged getting the rain poncho on.

Jeremy, Fiona, me, Ingun, PC

Drenched from the spray of the falls!

A look up the river before the falls

Looking down towards Rainbow Bridge

Does this mean I went to Canada??

Hanging out with famous people at the gift shop.

It was a pretty warm day and we enjoyed hanging out by the AC units in the gift shop. The drive back seemed forever of course but we survived and then found some Thai food in Erie to end our rest day.

A few words about the hotel we were staying in - it was once a grand hotel, now a bit past it's prime. It seems there have been some attempts at sprucing up the place, most of them not quite finished. For example, our bathroom looked like it had a fairly new vanity in it. With four long screws only partly screwed in and the face plate a bit askew. There was a hole cut in the ceiling. Not sure for what. The doorknob was loosely attached so if you closed the door and it actually latched, you'd be stuck inside. Fiona had to have me let her out twice. Our phone didn't work. No fridge or microwave. Although the staff did tell us that if we wanted to bring anything down to the front desk they'd microwave it for us. Other people couldn't get into their rooms or once they were there, couldn't get out. Some walls were partially collapsed between main room and bedroom. Toilets that didn't work. You get the picture. We walked in and our beds weren't made. When I went down to get my luggage I let the front desk know and they said they'd have someone take care of it when we went out.

Here's Fiona sitting on the bed, roughly as we found it although the pillows were  up at the top. So when we went out for our afternoon food foraging excursion, we let the front desk know. We came back and the beds were the same but there was a bottle of wine and some chocolates.

Sent by a friend of Fiona's. Cool. When we went down again, I mentioned to the front desk that the beds still weren't made. When we came back, everything was the same except now there were flowers as well.

Stage winners at the Tour de France get flowers and we'd just finished the fourth stage of our journey. Very thoughtful gift! Not sure why the flowers didn't show up the same time as the other stuff?? Again, I go to the front desk. The clerk says "Are you sure the beds aren't made? Can I come check?" Of course. So she walks in the room, pulls back what we had assumed was the mattress pad, assures us that there is a bottom sheet, a top sheet, and a duvet. Huh. Altogether about the same thickness as a mattress pad. And all white so it looks like a mattress pad as well. Fooled us! ;) It was not our favorite motel and we were pretty happy to cycle away from it on Tuesday morning! It did have two nice big elevators though.