AirPod Kerfuffle

Buffalo to Dunkirk, New York May 2, 2021

My hotel room was so sumptuous, I wound up sleeping a total of 10 hours. There was also an elaborate breakfast, so I really felt like I was luxuriating. The result was I didn’t leave till almost noon, then as I was packing up, I realized that my AirPods were missing.

Oh rats. They were the expensive, noise-cancelling kind, very helpful when navigating, as well as talking on the phone and listening to podcasts. I’m usually quite careful with them, where could they be? I searched the room, went back down to the breakfast area and searched around there, asked the cleaning staff and the front desk, nobody had turned them in. The “Find My” app on my iPhone is supposed to help you track them down, and have them play a tone. I did that near the trash can in the breakfast area, and even asked the hotel manager to take me to the dumpster, so I could use the app to play a tone there. Nothing. They must’ve fallen out of my pocket somewhere, and somebody picked them up. I resigned myself to having to buy a new pair, but the nearest Apple store was 10 miles in the wrong direction. I guess I will have to go pod-less until Erie, or Cleveland. Maybe serve me right. We get too dependent on new technology.

All of this kept me from leaving until well after noon. Rain was forecast, but it was just sprinkling a tiny bit. I was left to navigate the dystopian industrial suburb of Lackawanna using the speaker from my cell phone mounted on the handlebars, often drowned out by the noise. As a result, I got off-route a couple of times, and found myself negotiating busy arterials with trucks lumbering by, debris littering the meager shoulders.

Not to worry. Over the years I’ve gotten quite a bit of experience navigating hostile streets in cities such as DC, Manhattan, and Boston, and even London and Paris. I had my super-bright flasher, and an innate sense of urban cycling technique, born of the definitive text on the subject, Effective Cycling by traffic engineer John Forester, published by the MIT Press. I highly recommend that book. I have taken his lessons to heart, and in almost 200,000 miles of riding (including 34 Vermont winters) never had a bike accident or even a close call.

Lackawanna. Sounds like a libido problem. The streets eventually got tamer, I got back on route, the rain stopped, the sun came out, the headwind abated, and I was soon joined by a familiar friend, the amazing Adventure Cycling route system.

The Adventure Cycling Association is the AAA of bicycle touring. Founded in 1976 as BikeCentennial, they laid out a coast to coast bicycle route from Oregon to Virginia called the Transamerica Trail, and from that built up a network long distance bicycle routes that looks like the US interstate highway system.

You purchase the route in sections, that are similar to the AAA TripTiks of yore, a series of strip maps on waterproof paper that lay out the details of each route in segments.

Bike-friendly amenities such as campgrounds, bike shops, convenience stores, post offices, libraries etc. are marked. Each route has been curated by local bike clubs, so you can be confident you’re on the safest and most optimal route through a given area. It’s a great comfort, I use these maps whenever I can, and have been a charter member of the ACA since 1976.

Now that I am finished with the Erie Canal, I can follow these routes almost exclusively as I track my way across the country. I will have to diverge to the various state highpoints and other points of interest/friends/family I hope to see, but the ACA will be my traveling companion whenever possible. The network also increases your chances of meeting up with other long distance bike tourists.

The route soon followed the shoreline of Lake Erie, and passed a series of jaw-droppingly beautiful lakeside estates. The most prominent was Graycliff, designed by Frank Loyd Wright. I balked at paying the admission fee, but snapped a quick picture and talked at some length with Alicia Meyers, a docent who had found a new chapter in her life, and great fulfillment showing people this beautiful residence.

Now off the canal, there are mild hills but nothing daunting, and the smooth pavement made the miles speed by. I ended at Dunkirk, New York, where there is a cute fishing pier and a very quirky restaurant, Spike Dailey’s, where I finally had my Beef on Weck.

Just in time, this is my last day in New York. At the bar there, I chatted with Gene, an Uber driver from Erie PA, and Matt and Carrie, who were directing a documentary about a local punk rock phenomenon, formerly called the Descendants, now called ALL. Matt’s first film about them is called Filmage, and I watched it on Amazon prime. Compelling.

At the motel, as I was getting out my charger cords, I had to laugh. There were my AirPods. I had mistaken them for one of the Apple chargers. Folded up, they do look kind of similar, but I felt like such an idiot. There’s an hour of my life I’ll never get back.

Distance 47 miles, 671.2 total. Time 6 hours with stops. Elevation gain 955 feet.