Biking to the birthplace of the US Navy

Happy Mother’s Day!  We had another very full weekend. Saturday was bike day for John and I.  We went to a completely different place this time.  Basically straight north.  I always talk about Lake George, but we also are close to Lake Champlain and the Champlain canal, which is the route we went along:

We are at the bottom of this, which is along the canal.  It was a gorgeous morning, mid 50s and sunny.

It’s now starting to get green around here.  Trees are budding out!  We had a tiny bit of tail wind on the way to Whitehall and we made great time!  This is more flat than most of our rides, so that helped.

First stop was around mile 12.

I actually did not need a snack here.  We left shortly after breakfast and I had a nice tummy full of protein waffles.  Good energy for the ride, I have to say.

We arrived in Whitehall at mile 23 and we had an average pace of 14.6 miles per hour!  Fastest ever!  Whitehall is the birthplace of the US Navy.

Pretty cool.  The canal was quite high from the recent rains, and part of the road was closed due to that.

This is the hull of the USS Ticonderoga:

It was in the battle of Lake Champlain in 1814 and then raised in 1956.

Whitehall is a nice town.  It is a little depressed, which is a shame because it is very cute and right on the water.  It just needs some kind of spark to get going.  Maybe sasquatch scares people away

Whitehall has a history of bigfoot sightings. :mrgreen:

We ate lunch along the canal.  Just packed sandwiches.  No cupcakes today!

Open face PB&J.

Definteley a nice place to have lunch!

Then we headed home.  At mile 30, we stopped for a quick breather:

The skies were looking a little ominous.

Uh-oh…  The wind picked up as well.  We were somewhat slower on the way home.  Too bad we couldn’t keep up a 14.6 mph pace!  It started to spit some rain on us with about 10 miles to go, but it stopped.  Then about 2 miles from home, it really started to rain!  Ugh!  We were soaked when we got home after 45.5 miles.

Other than the last 2 miles, it was a good ride.  Wouldn’t you know that 30 minutes later, the sun was back out again.

Ride Stats:

Total miles: 45.7

Average Speed: 13.3  (slower on the way home)

Ride time: 3 hours 25 minutes

Top speed: 26.2 mph

Calories burned: 1481

Happy Mother’s Day to my mom!  The best mom 😀

And to my sister – Happy Mother’s Day!

We went to the Albany Tulip Festival, and I will do a post on Monday with that as it deserves its own post with a lot of flower pictures.  I was going to try to squeeze that into this post, but it would just have been too long.

Preview of that:

Make sure you come back to see a lot of tulips tomorrow!

20 thoughts on “Biking to the birthplace of the US Navy

  1. Fran

    Great bike ride Lori and nice to see the other side of where you live.

    We have something in Holland called “De Keukenhof” which is very famous and attracts a lot of tourists. It’s open from somewhere in April till the end of May and it has all tulips and other Spring flowers. I think you would like to see that. So if you ever plan to come to Holland, do it in Spring and I’ll show it to you.

  2. Amy

    Great ride! Too bad about the rain but at least it was at the end of the trip and not the beginning…
    Looking forward to seeing more tulip pictures – I love tulips. I’ve been to the place Fran mentioned above and it’s just gorgeous – a tulip extravaganza. And if you come to visit Fran then you have to come south and visit me too!

  3. Jody - Fit at 53

    What a wonderful day & ride – most of it! 😉 Thx for the cool pics & history & Bigfoot!

    I love the pic of Pixie & your sis – cracked me up like Pixie was posing just like a person! 🙂

    Beautiful tulips & can’t wait to see more!

    1. Lori Post author

      It’s just a bike computer that logs all of the stuff. There is a sensor that you clip to your wheel and it registers when you ride (and have it on).

  4. Helen

    The rain photo cracked me up! I was eating lunch with my mom when that squall hit around these parts and it rained hard and fast. I can only imagine what that felt like on a bike. Good job on the ride, that must have burned some serious calories.

  5. Jenn@slim-shoppin

    Great job on the bike ride Lori! That’s a lot of miles!! Glad it didn’t rain the whole way back – that would have been not so fun.

    Thanks for the pictures and recap 🙂

  6. Kelly Happy Texan

    I adore this post. It makes me want to get out there and ride. Glad you two lovebirds had such a great day together.

    Those are the most unusual tulips! Love them. Wish they’d grow in this area. Can’t wait for the flower post!

  7. Kimberley

    Great ride…except for the raining part!

    Nice pic of you and your mom! We are having a tulip festival just up the road right now too. Hopefully we can get there soon to check it out…eagerly awaiting the lilac festival too!

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