Yesterday’s rain had cleared the sky from any hint of humidity and the strong north wind made the 60° feel quite cool.  It was a picture perfect, chamber of commerce, football weather, fall day.  Our first four miles was along a busy highway,then we headed north into the country.  Luckily the tall tree lined street shielded us from the winds full blast.  A few miles down, a bend in the road and we were in a small town looking at Lake Ontario. Pultneyville is a historic, patriotic and charming town.After biking the two blocks through the town, we were in the middle of apple orchards. Trees were bursting with fruit, the bins on the stand-by for the harvest. It did not take long for us to start the rolling hills and they did not stop.  Met Larry from Rochester doing a week long ride through the countryside.

An hour later, as we are flying down a hill after a long climb, this crazy lady in a van starts waving her arms at us.  We hesitantly braked on our much cherished fly down only to be surprised by Sheryl (in the middle, flanked by Hanna and Sue), a friend from the Brac.  Turns out we were only a couple miles away from where she and Gary lived; little did we know how brutal those couple miles of hills were.  It was a great two hour stop, and lunch (THANK YOU, you two), but we still had a lot of miles to cover. Gary, SO sorry we did not get a pic of you and Sheryl together. The minute we left, at 1:30, the hills started rolling and did not quit. The drops were great, but the climbs brutal.  We would have given up the drops to flatten out the climbs.  But the day was gorgeous; the temperatures had remained cool, the wind continued to blow in our face and apple orchards were everywhere.  It was taking everything we had to climb the hills, so had little energy/opportunity to take pictures; but Google was there to catch us!!The rolling hills were non-stop and steep.We were so exhausted by the time we rolled into our destination, we only managed a picture of the Oswego River; a branch of the Erie Canal that flows into Lake Ontario.  Finally checked into our hotel at 5:30; took us almost six and a half hours to go 61 miles and we were toast!