Follow the yellow brick road

Canastota to Syracuse, New York Sunday, April 25, 2021

It was raining in the morning, and I had to Loctite all 44 screws on my Ortlieb panniers, so I didn’t get out of the motel until noon.

A number of friends have told me I shouldn’t focus on the goal so much, just enjoy the journey, and be sure to smell the roses. Seven miles into today’s trip, I saw I was only a couple of miles north of L. Frank Baum’s birthplace in Chittenango and decided that rose was worth sniffing. I have fond memories from the 60s of the family gathering around the TV when “The Wizard of Oz“ was aired every year. My daughter Hope feels a particular connection to the musical “Wicked”, her first Broadway show, centered around the wicked witch of the west, given the name Elphaba, derived from Baum’s name. But most poignantly, it evokes my father’s final message to us, saying “we’re off to see the wizard.” More about that later.

The little museum was closed on this Sunday, but it was fun to look in the windows and see that all the sidewalks in the town center were paved with yellow bricks.

The stone dust was in great shape, and I passed many Sunday walkers and bikers along the placid canal. Rather abruptly I saw some skyscrapers in the distance, I was approaching Syracuse. The route shifted to a clever bike path in the median strip of an arterial road, I have only seen this technique once before, on Pennsylvania Avenue in my hometown of Washington DC. It got me safely into the center of town, it was weird to be in a city. Hope’s best friend went to Syracuse University, and mentioned that the must-see was, wait for it, Dinosaur Barbecue. This was the original, the flagship, how could I resist?

Even at 3 PM on a Sunday it was a half hour wait to get in, I sat at the bar and told them I was on a research project, to see how their Big Ass Pork compared to the one in Troy. Syracuse won by a nose.

I needed a specialty shop you could only find in a big city, and Google maps directed me to the Destiny USA Center, reached through a maze of industrial highways clustered around a sewage treatment plant. The center turned out to be a massive shopping mall, I have not been in one of those for decades. Like most malls, it had partially gone to seed, a lot of the storefronts were vacant. It was almost comical, took me forever to find the shop I was looking for, most of the touchscreen directory kiosks were broken, and nobody seemed to know where my store was. It was just as bewildering finding my way back out again. I felt like such a hick.

By then it was 5:30, and I still had 25 miles to go to my next Thruway-side motel in Weedsport. Just for fun I checked Priceline to see what was available in Syracuse, and found that the swanky Crowne Plaza Hotel was actually cheaper than the Weedsport motel. Time to sniff the roses once again. I sweet-talked my way at the front desk into a room on the 19th floor, and even though the windows were partially fogged up it was a spectacular way to end the day, the sunset was amazing. I watched it as I talked with my good buddy Steve Shepard, who is devoting one his Natural Curiosity Project podcasts to this trip.

Even better, I found a Warmshowers for tomorrow, the roses are saving me some serious scratch. It will be 54 miles into a chilly headwind, but worth it.

Distance 30.1 miles, 350.1 total. Time 6 hours with stops. Elevation gain 162 feet.