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Friday 28th June 2024 Over the Watershed towards the Great Lakes.

A sign at the side of the road told us, during today's journey, that we had crossed the watershed and now rivers drained into Lake Ontario. It gave us a comforting sense of moving on - America is so big that it can feel as though we are not really moving. But in a couple of days we should, with continuing effort, reach Lake Ontario. Today was a great day's cycling - perfect weather, fairly quiet roads and nicely graded so that overall the general trend was going downhill as we leave behind the mountains and head towards the big lakes. The starting point at Newcomb - the cafe and campground - were very good. $20 to camp and about the same amount for coffee, iced water, a stack of blueberrypancakes with maple syrup and a three egg scramble with toast. The next twenty miles seem to fly by after that. Blue Mountain Lake supplied cake and salad for lunch, then on via Inlet. At one shop the man behind the counter was listening, and vigorously commenting on, yesterday's debate between Biden and Trump, a Trump flag decorated a truck outside. He said he had smoked pot through the debate (this hardly needed saying) with beer and Trump came out tops. Questioned, I said I was from Wales and he said his best teacher was from Wales - Hughes. A communist. I expressed mild surprise that this fitted with Trump. I hadn't realised that part of Trump's attraction is libertarian and, oddly, communism might be seen as libertarian. Especially if you have never studied it. Well we are steering clear of US politics so that was ample. I do like Mr Bidens quiet calm style though. Back on the road a clearer headed meeting took place. Mike, cycling along the Northern Tier, East to West, met us and was our first verified Northern Tier cyclist. He did Seattle to home in Pennsylvania one year and now is doing Pennsylvania to Bar Harbour to finish the transam. He said that we've got an awful lot of road to come.... and said the route gets a bit quieter away from these tourist hotspots of the Appalachian and Adirondacks. He thought we should start to see 'through bikers' by sometime in July. He recommended State Parks as great fir camping - not many evident so far. So we waved each other goodbye and safe travels. We eventually reached our destination - Old Forge. This is a Skegness of the Adirondacks - pleasures such as The Enchanted Forest await the keen child. We ended up at Old Forge Resort and Camping, not perhaps ideal for a transam cyclist - a bit noisy and very busy. It has happy holiday character. And it is good for swim in the lake, just what I needed. But a bear warning is in force here, all our food is in the reception area until tomorrow. Black bears would be attracted, I'm sure, by the amount of barbecues going on around us... And by the skip that's full of rubbish bags about 50 yards away. At least they are not grizzlies... If this is posted to the Web then you can rest assured that we survived the night.

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