You can be surprised at how little people can relate with travelers like us. That's what we learned as we headed into Rochester that third day out of Binghamton.
The days activities had been fairly lax as we rode along beautiful Lake Seneca along the backroad that Jerry had suggested. We made a few stops and had the marvelous experience of getting two free pairs of contacts right outside of Canandaigua at the Wal-mart vision center. As we arrived in Rochester, I remember commenting on how nice the city looked.
Lee was all about getting a "garbage plate" - a caloric binge made famous in Rochester. As we entered the city, we were pointed in the direction of a Nick Tahou's, which took us all the way to the other side of the city where things began to look a little less upscale and a little more downtown.
Excited to have our hearts content of cheeseburger, french fries, and macaroni salad all heaped together, we flew up to Nick's only to see a sign that said "Closed." We were 15 minutes late.
One of the fry cooks came out though and we tried to get directions to another good place to get garbage. Each direction ended with "all the way down" and "way way way down" and I could feel myself getting tired just listening to his directions. Stef was the first to break the news that we weren't going to the other Nick Tahou's, but this guy was adamant. "You guys all know where Wendy's neighborhood is?" Silence. "How about Thompson Avenue?" No man, we're not from around here, we don't know these streets are, and we especially don't know where "Wendy's neighborhood" is.
After quite abruptly leaving Nick's, we rode around Rochester a little bit until we got some good directions to to Mark's restaurant. We arrived and ate like pigs. I ended up finishing my plate as well as the French Fries for the other two. I was pretty full.
On the way to Lenny's friends place, we had to stop to fix a chain that had snapped off of Lee's bike - a nice bike repair lesson to end the day. Unfortunately, it was hard riding after that with road work, trucks, and no sunlight.
Once we were at Lenny's friends house, we made ourselves comfortable in the cool basement and called it a night. Our plans for the next day had changed quite a bit - no longer were we headed to Buffalo to see my brother, but we were heading along Lake Ontario. I wasn't very happy and could feel myself pulling away from the group. We would iron these things out though in the days of state parks and loving, supportive sharing to come.
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