Soda is the Point

"Which one of you was more drunk last night?" asked the Cindy, camp manager smiling.

"What? We were sober as clams last night," I protested with sarcasm.

"Well, who dropped this? Its been in the parking lot since last night," she said, lifting my Camelbak.

"Ah man," I said embarrassed. 

We honestly weren't that drunk for the 4th of July. The thing was, it rained while we were at a bar so when I kept calling the campground, saying I'd be there soon, it just never evolved until later at night when the rain stopped. It was a rather forgetful July 4. 

We thought the city of Fulton, NY might offer some prospects for the holiday weekend but we really found nothing but an old back corner bar. So from the bar, we cycled to the campground, fireworks exploding in the distance. We caught a glimpse of a few glittering across the large lake of the campground we were sleeping in. The man at the bar told us, "Whatever you do, do not swim in that lake. It's man-made and has some weird algae growing in it. For that matter, I wouldn't fish in it either."

 I thought about a lot about what the man said later at the campground. The lake looked like an old chlorine pool.

In the morning, we listened to music and rode comfortably along the wide shoulder of Route 3 west through the towns of Hannibal and Granby Center. It was easy, calm, and safe. However, as we rolled into the town of Sterling on the way to Fairhaven, things got iffy. I suddenly realized Josh was no longer behind me and gave him a call.

"Yo," he said. "Dude, I blew out another tire. I'll just... No! I'm fine, thanks!" he said away from the phone talking to someone. He had just pulled over and a friendly passerby was already checking on him. 

I rolled into Fairhaven where a local festival was going on. Naturally, I wandered in following the sounds of music.

"Alright! This song is for all those young people," whistled the old disc jockey. "All you gotta do is wiggle it."

Families and children awkwardly walked around as the chorus went, "You know what to do with that big fat butt." I watched the weirdness and ate ice cream. Eventually the weirdness became too great and I found a car show in town.  Obviously, I'm not quite one for motor vehicles so the whole thing fell on blind eyes. But still, some of those hot rods are pretty.

Pretty outrageous. 

Josh got into town and we got some lunch at a local cafe where we met a local historian named Robert. He was really cool and gave us the downlow about geographical terrain we'd encounter. Some people know this but I was amazed to find that the Great Lakes are originally from huge glaciers that retreated and melted. It was news to me. I also learned that Fairhaven as well as Sodus Point (where we were headed) were huge ports for the transportation of coal until the late 1960's.

Josh stayed in Fairhaven a bit longer as I finally had had enough and cycled out. Josh called me an hour later.

"Hey, I talked to Kevin... my front derailer broke. It's apparently easy to fix but I'm going super turtle slow," he told me. "And I'm sad. This is a low morale day."

Poor champ. 

Eventually, I got into Sodus Point.

Sodus Point. During the War of 1812, the British attacked the town (then known as Troutsville) and burned every single home but one. The militia had waited several days for a British attack, hearing rumors of one. After several days of nothing, the militia was allowed to go home. That very same day, the British attacked the virtually defenseless port. They were repelled a few times but eventually they made it to land.

The coal trade was also of the utmost importance to this area's economic success. In the 1850's, Sodus Point connected with the Pennsylvania Railroad and received coal from Pennsylvania. The coal was brought up to Sodus Point on trains where it was unloaded onto tressles, which were then sold to Canada and other ports. In it's first year in 1872, there was 32,000 tons of coal moved. By the time of its height in the 1960's, each tressle every day had around 13,000 tons. It was also by this point in the 60's that the old 60 ft. high and 400 ft. long pier was too outdated for the job. Other ports with more modern facilities surpassed Sodus Point. In 1971 in an accidental fire, all the remnants of the pier and of the coal trade burned up. However, the train depot just behind the water sill sits abandoned.

We're sleeping at the South Shore RV Park where the prices are cheap and the people are pretty. Beans and chili for dinner. Josh is happy and I'm riding in Gear 1 with Josh because he's going to be biking slow as all shit tomorrow. To slowness!