Theo Visits Niagara and Ashtabula

Niagara was pretty nice. Well, very touristy, but the falls themselves are still very beautiful. Some of us riders just liked to think about how they would have looked before all the buildings and bridges got set up.

So on our way through the Canadian border!

Here, you can see me in front of just some of the tackiness surrounding the area.

A couple others (Ali and Jocelyn (whose mom reads my blog!)) at the falls. This picture shows how close you can really get to the falls. It's pretty close. Yeah I did a double parenthese.

On the bridge connecting America and Canada. Just an excellent view from here. I've got tons of pics from here but they'll have to wait (darn Flickr upload limit!).

So yeah, the whole thing was very interesting. The falls are like a huge cloud machine. Saw a rainbow in there a couple times, too. But yeah. Cloud machine, cuz the mist just gets kicked up higher and higher (it actually constantly "rains" when you're near the Horseshoe section of Niagara) and then they all crowd up together and leave as a cloud.

So one word could some up our whole ride to Westfield from Niagara.

Wind. (Don't wanna be blunt about it but there are wind mills in the background. See? Yeah.) We were tracing Lake Erie and I guess there are winds from the lake coming to meet us. Made the ride a lot more difficult, but it was nice to steal peeks at the lake throughout the ride. Something else of particular note is Jon's Canadian flag alongside the US flag on this Fourth of July ride.

Also, there were just acres and acres of vineyards. It's unbelievable. Just imagining that there are "wine countries" far vaster than this boggles my mind.

On our way to Ashtabula, we cut through Pennsylvania. I like to think we overtook the whole width of the state in a few hours.

That Erie Lake is huge. It's like being on a whole other coast itself. From now on, I'd like to think of the trip as Coast to Coast to Coast.

Group picture on the Ohio border! So I've talked to a few you and a common question has been "Where does a place called Ashtabula get its name?" Well, the kind woman (been here since 1959) who let Angel and I use her shower told us! It's a Native term referencing a river with a bunch of fish.

There was a huge sign saying "park" and there was this field next to it. Come to think of it, the sign was leading to a different area, and we were probably trespassing on some farmer's plot, but it made for a good few pictures of us in seas of green and amber.

We had a build day here in Ashtabula, but we instead volunteered with WIC to paint their local office here in Ashtabula. Here's one of our leaders (Nate) using the unconventional Palmer method of removing a tree as Cydney and Matt look on.

As usual (but by all means extraordinary), our hosts have been so gracious to us. We have been meeting more people on the streets (perhaps YOU are someone to whom I gave my site to?) and the friendliness we've been encountering has been great. I saw some great hospitality in New England, but the Midwest is proving to us that they've got that helping spirit as well.

The way I see it, there can't be too many pictures of me me me.

But this time, I'm gonna end with a video I got of us painting the trailer (!). I've watched this video at least 5 times, and it holds something new every time. (I actually had a whole paragraph going on of things to watch out for in the background, but I'll let you guys watch for yourselves.)