Road Trips and Hike Reports

This wasn’t a challenging hike but it was a chance to get out in July without being soaked in sweat.  The Erie county forest is a multi-plot area of year round recreational opportunity South of Buffalo and East Aurora.  We did 2 loops on this hike, one North and one South of the main road that passes through this tract.  There was a little ‘extension loop’ that we intended to do but couldn’t find today.  Still, despite the modest length it was a satisfying hike.

I had some early morning work to do on the 4th of July.  Even better, since we were in Central time the work was an hour earlier than it otherwise would have been.  So I got up at 5 am and headed down to the hotel bar to shut down some servers in Rochester remotely.  After I finished that work I took a little walk alone around the area of the hotel to give Brian a little more time to sleep.  I also got a jug of water and some cash from the bank.   When Brian was up we headed out to visit my friend Pat in the far suburbs of Chicago.  We had a really great bagel at Big Apple Bagels in Aurora Illinois.  For a franchise place, the food was really satisfying and the owners clearly have a lot of regulars and it was surprisingly satisfying watching the interactions.  I brought some bagels for Pat and we visited for about 90 minutes. After Pat's we drive North along the Fox River on IL-25 and IL-31.  I always found the Fox scenic and relaxing.  We had an early dinner in West Dundee, just

This trip has been on the books for a long time.  I contemplated having it be a train one way rental car the other trip but ultimately it has taken the originally planned form… Driving both ways. We left Saturday from home quite early which was good.  We stopped at the casino in Nigarga Falls NY which was bad but somewhat fun.  The drive through Ontario Canada to Michigan was better than last time.  Why people near Toronto literally do almost the opposite of what their road signs say (slower traffic keep right) is beyond me, they have worse lane discipline than California or Illinois or any other state I normally hold in low regard for driving basics.  But it wasn’t all that busy and once we got onto ON-403 and later ON-402 there were so few cars it wouldn’t have mattered what lane everybody drove in at all.  It was truly very very quiet.  The (relatively) new 110 KM/h speed limit is a help too since twith even the slightest rounding up that’s easily 70 MPH.  Border crossing into Canad