Day 31-Julie, Aaron and Moreau Lake State Park

Day 31 Tuesday, June 8, 2010 Distance 72.47 km. Time 4 hrs. 14 min. Total so far 2208.57 km. We left at 7 and went through undulating hills. I noticed that while in Pennsylvania, little streams were called "runs" and here in New York, they are called "kills". Today, we passed Indian Kill and Mourning Kill. The highlight of the morning was having my photo taken with the "Rotterdam" sign. I wish it was the one in Holland. The town of "Amsterdam" is about 2o miles from here. We passed over the Mohawk River today. There are 4 kinds of people we see. The first goes right by minding his own business. The second gives a nod or wave as she goes by. The third might ask where we are from and where we are going. The fourth goes out of their way to come to us, ask about our journey, praise our efforts and if, later in the day, also goes out of their way to arrange a place for us to stay or go to or give helpful suggestions as to the route we have planned. Julie veered from her walk to her vehicle in Schenectady to come to talk with me. She is the organizer of Hiking Mates and knows the Green Mountains well. She has a brown lab called "Chocolate." She stayed until Dave came out of the store and took out her map books and gave us good advice. She seemed like an easy going person who likes taking people up the mountains. A little while later, we saw a tourer coming, our third of the trip. Aaron is a 26 year old teacher who has already conquered the Trans America route on his Fuji touring bike. Now he is going from Long Island to Montreal, across the country (maybe Canada) to the west coast and up to Alaska. We gave him some names and phone numbers of people that might be able to help him. I have to remember to email them. At lunch, Dave withdrew some cash for the first time as we have been using our visa card all the time. I called ahead to the bicycle store near Glen Falls that will be doing work on Silver and the parts were not in yet so we will go there tomorrow. We decided to stop then and go to Moreau Lake State Park but Dave had trouble using our card. Apparently, the bank and card company thought they had been stolen and someone was going across the country using them. He had to make several phone calls to fix the situation. Then the lady said the route to the campsite was pretty flat. Well it was extremely hilly. She should go outside for a walk sometime around the place. What I don't like about places like this, is that when we would like to put our tent on the nice soft leaves ,we have to put it on the hard sand and gravel. Our neighbor, Donna and her husband are on vacation and his quest is to visit as many as possible of the birth and death places of US presidents. They are from Troy, Pennsylvania so we rode right past their house without knowing. They will go to New York, Vermont and New Hampshire so maybe we will see them again. I went for a long walk to the other end of the lake where the day use area was.