Day 6: Rest Day in Erie, Pennsylvania

Erie, Pennsylvania is not the Garden Spot you might think it is.  Yeah, I never thought that either.  But it certainly is up there with other hot spots for "the land that time forgot."  This is a city that has seen far better days.  What can you say about a place when you've asked five different locals, "what should I see while I'm in your town?" and the only answer you get back is, "go see the lake."  That's it!?  The lake?

Oliver Hazard Perry commanded American naval forces that won a decisive battle on Lake Erie against the British in the War of 1812.  He's the big attraction down here.

I wanted to visit the Niagara at the Brig Museum, but "she's out sailing today."  Oh well.

The locals brag that their sunset ranks as one of the top three in the States.  I don't know who is keeping score, but a sunset into the water is pretty cool.  Still, it doesn't beat the sunset off the balcony from Nepenthe Restaurant in
Big Sur, California.  (I took this last night as it's raining like crazy today.)

And, oddly enough, you don't really get the sense of how big Lake Erie is when you walk down to the bottom of State Street to the water's edge.  That's because you are staring across a small body of water that separates the mainland of Pennsylvania from Presque Isle, the peninsula that juts out from the mainland into the lake.  On a grand scale, it's not that big a peninsula, but from the vantage point of Erie, it's big enough to obscure the ocean vista that you would see when walking down North Michigan Avenue to stare out onto Lake Michigan.  Somewhere on the other side of Presque Isle lies the majority of Lake Erie.

At 8:00 this morning, most of us were out cleaning our frames, wheels and chains, getting any remaining tar off the wheels and frames as well as cleaning the grit from our gears and chains.

Chain flossing.  No that's not me.  (You could tell because he's wearing a watch!)

Apart from a bit of sightseeing, today was about bike washing, bike repairs, doing laundry and just resting.  We're covered 466 miles over the past five days.  630 more to go over the next eight days.  And more rain and thunderstorms in the forecast.