A cool 54° beautiful Sunday morning as we pedaled off at nine this morning. We enjoyed the first half mile of flat land through town before we started to climb.  We were still struggling through the extreme (14%) grades, but enjoying the cool morning and beautiful scenery, finally getting a chance to photograph the creeks and river, that made the climbing worth it.  The Moose River must have some high, raging waters to plant this tree on top of this rock. We were just discussing wine, when we passed a bottle tree (sorry, M.E. missed the photo) and this apropos flag.The first half the ride today we climbed and dropped step, yet slightly shorter, hills.  A turn in the course and the next ten miles we were on a busy highway. Though the noise was deafening after the peaceful countryside, we did enjoy relaxed grades and a tailwind, previously hidden in the colorful woods; and this road led us to town and lunch.  Our turn after lunch had us climbing the hillside filled with vacation homes (very realistic lawn ornaments, eh?)and lakefront cottages.These foothills rolled us past the Fulton Chain Lakesand deep forest treating us to cool shade and not a lot of steep grades

People getting the last few days in before school starts and booking everything around is really dictating our (shorter) distances through the Adirondack.  So at 40 miles we stopped at this nice motel, just walking distance from a 50 beers on tap restaurant.