Canastota, New York

I was soaking wet from two hours of drizzle at the end of the day and with the rain not relenting I was reconciled to a motel even though it was just Day Two of these travels. GPS showed the Sleepy Hollow Motel a few miles past Auburn which I was passing through as sunset closed in.  I made it before the sun reached the horizon, but I feared the motel might be closed down with but two run-down cars at either end of its parking lot.  No, there was a non-neon sign in the office window stating “Open.”  

There were only two cars because of the inclement weather, as the motel catered to tourists visiting the Finger Lakes, and charged accordingly—$150.  Itinerant travelers such as me wouldn’t be attracted to such a place with a rate twice what I was willing to pay.  I may have been wet, but at least I wasn’t overly chilled, as it was still seventy degrees from an autumn heat-wave that had had the temperature in the eighties before the rain moved in.  I felt I’d been given a reprieve and could spend the night in my tent rather than some sterile domicile.

Within two miles I came upon a dirt road into a state forest.  I didn’t have to go far before I found a bit of a clearing under a patch of trees that provided a semblance of a canopy blunting the rain, allowing me to erect my abode for the night before many raindrops had penetrated. Once inside I quickly shed my wet shorts and jacket and shoes and socks and could feel myself instantly warming.  My gear wasn’t going to dry much, but it didn’t matter, as the forecast called for a morning rain.  Even if I’d been in a motel and got everything dry, it would all soon be wet all over again.

The rain recommenced shortly after I began riding.  The rain signaled a weather system that brought the temperatures closer to normal for this time of year, just fifty-nine degrees, which turned out to be the high for the day.  The rain was supposed to stop around noon, so when I came to a library at ten, five miles before the big city of Syracuse, I seized the opportunity to dry out a bit and make my entry into the urban sprawl on dry roads.  Unfortunately, weather.com got it wrong, as the rain refused to move on.  The website kept revising the forecast, pushing back the end of the rain until one, then two.  I didn’t care to wait, knowing that I’d have the chance to dry as I rode along when the rain passed.  

Plus I was eager to see the pair of Carnegies awaiting me in Syracuse.  The first was at the University.  I’ve always associated Syracuse with its university, as its football and basketball teams have frequently distinguished themselves.  Nearby Cornell at the bottom of one of the Finger Lakes doesn’t take its name from the city where it resides, Ithaca.  Dartmouth is the same.  So it felt a little strange entering Syracuse the city before reaching Syracuse the university.

The Carnegie was just past the basketball arena.  It looked out upon the wide expanse of a quad and was easily the most dignified building on campus.  It is just one of two of the better than one hundred academic libraries that Carnegie funded that still serves as a library.  There is a new general library, as the Carnegie now serves as the mathematics, technology and sciences library. The day before I had been to the former Carnegie Library at Wells College in Aurora on Lake Cayuga that now is Cleveland Hall serving as classrooms for the language department.  It blended in with all the other buildings on the campus on a hill overlooking the lake.

The trees around the lake were offering a variety of colors with their leaves changing, but the show was dampened with a heavy overcast that leaked an occasional shower.  I sought refuge for a couple of hours earlier in the day in the non-Carnegie Geneva Library that had a lot of character, beginning with signs out front asking “To Read or Not to Read.  What a silly question.”  

Inside was a Little Free Library type of box offering canned goods.  I’ve already come across quite a bit of sharing of food going on in these parts from food pantries and churches offering free lunches and so forth.  

As with the Syracuse University Library, the public library Carnegie funded for the city of Syracuse stands out from all the other buildings around, including the cathedral and the city hall across from it.  It still retains that aura that beckons and promises treasures within even though it no longer serves as a library.  It now provides office space for several county agencies.

With it still raining I had no desire to meander around the nearby campus or urban center or even venture to an Apple Store in a mall four miles away to figure out why my iPad has rejected Safari forcing me to switch to Chrome to access the internet.  I didn’t care to do any extra miles in the cold rain and needed to exert myself at a hearty pace on the open road to ward off the cold.  If there had been a football game this Saturday I would have been drawn to the stadium, where Charlie Eckhardt once played and I might find statues of Jim Brown and Ernie Davis, two stalwarts of its football team from over sixty years ago, one considered the greatest player ever and the other the first Black to win the Heisman Trophy in 1961.

It was past two now and the rain showed no signs of relenting.  It was fifteen miles to the next Carnegie in Canastota.  If a cheap motel offered itself, it would be hard to resist.  About half way there I suffered a flat tire.  The sole consolation was that it  occurred in front of a house with a porch where I could seek refuge.  No one was home so I wasn’t invited in to warm up.  My hands were so cold I could barely pry the bungee chords off my rear load and struggled to unbuckle my pannier to access my tire irons and spare tubes.  I had to stick my hands under my shirt against my skin for a minute or so before my fingers could function.  

The Carnegie in Canastota was a dandy, and unmarred by an addition.  There was no going inside as it’s Saturday hours were just eleven until two.  It wasn’t until 4:30 that the rain stopped, two hours before sunset, enough time for me to somewhat dry other than my shoes and socks.  It was my third night in a row in a forest down a dirt road that didn’t require forcing myself through brush, which is somewhat of a concern here as this region is a hotbed of ticks, where Lyme disease first presented itself.  The all-day rain made it somewhat of a survival day but the forecast called for clear, but cold, sailing the next few days.  I looked forward to dry roads and dry shoes as I dined on ramen enhanced by sweet yams from a dented can compliments of Aldi along with some sour cream.  Dessert of apple donuts was also provided by Aldi.