It was early, so no one was around except me and a surprising number of local police. I ended up waiting at a number of stoplights along with said officers of the law to get to the bonus location, fidgeting at the delay, waiting for non-existent cross traffic.. but I wasn’t going to make work for local traffic enforcement, not today.

I forgot how stringent parking rules are in Buffalo, and it took me a couple minutes to find a place to park that was even hand-wavingly legal. As I stopped, I put a foot down in some sand and almost lost the bike to a tip-over, groaning with effort to keep it from crashing down. That would’ve been the last thing I needed.. just get to the checkpoint, Kerri. Take it easy. You’re fine, you’ve got plenty of energy to make it through today, just don’t make dumb mistakes. Visions of DNF’ing because I cracked a cylinder head while dropping the bike at a stop haunted me as I jogged over to snap a photo of the next George Washington statue.

This being my second George Washington statue in a row, I would not increase my multiplier for non-GW bonuses an additional 75 points, but for 600 points, it was worth getting regardless.

After a slow stop at a NY travel plaza for gas and a bio break, I ended up in this quiet little residential corner of Rochester at quarter to 8, waving to another rider who was just leaving. If you stop and think about it, this shouldn’t surprise you, as proximity to a checkpoint increases, so does the likelihood of route convergence.

This was one of my favorite bonuses of the leg, 2 lovely statues of Mr Douglass and Ms Anthony having tea and, one imagines, debating the finer points of the realpolitik of universal suffrage. Douglass had argued against including women’s suffrage in the 15th Amendment (ensuring the right to vote) as he felt it would make passage impossible, losing the chance for suffrage for former slaves for a generation or more. This disagreement caused a rift in their friendship that took years to heal, which the statue commemorates. I find it a gentle reminder that rights are not zero-sum; one person gaining more rights does not impact my own freedom, so why shouldn’t I want to expand liberty and enfranchisement?

I wish I had more time to stop at the Susan B Anthony House Museum here, where she was arrested in 1872, but they don’t open until 11am, and technically I’m in a rally, so I shouldn’t dally, even though I’ve got plenty of time…

Except… I did have time, and messing around with the plan on the GPS, while I didn’t do anything with it, broke the seal on my brain, opening me to the possibilities of adding stops.. so when I got of I-90 to turn north to the next bonus in Clyde, NY, and I noticed that it was only 5 miles south to Seneca Falls, NY and the Women’s Rights National Historic Park.. well, they have stamps there for my National Parks Tour, and it’s “only 10 minutes” of a detour, and it’d get me another state…

Of course, it being a tiny New England village, it took longer than 10 minutes down and back.. and I got into a lengthy conversation with the park rangers about the Dobbs decision.. as federal employees, of course they couldn’t comment, but one who was off-duty in her street clothes, who had only just stopped by to drop something off, was more than happy to chat about politics with me.. meanwhile, the phones were ringing constantly and people stopping by, all worried and fearful and looking for reassurance.

…so my little “only 10 minutes” turned into 45 minutes.. time which I had in the bank to spend, but wasn’t the most rally-disciplined choice to make. Still, I got my stamp!

Clyde itself was another cute little hamlet, smaller than Seneca Falls, but nearly identical in that it is just like every other village I grew up around. Their statue of ol’ George was a quick snap and back to the highway for me. My non-GW bonuses are now worth +450, and I’ve crossed a critical threshold - less than 12 hours until penalty time!

Waze took me right through a rather run-down and slightly sketchy part of Syracuse to a parking area at the top of a steep street, with a tiny little 2.5 car parking area and a small walking trail leading off into the park. I nosed in next to a minivan, and faced my next challenge…

Hardly Mount Olympus, but something about it just felt like a kick in the pants. Can you believe the kind of crap rally masters make us do, knowing we’re going to relentlessly chase points?!

There were some kids loitering around, but they ignored me for the most part. The minivan driver left while I was up the stairs, so I had plenty of space to turn the bike around, but should probably do a little 3-point turn and… shit. Between the weird camber of the road, the pea-sized gravel and loose pavement chunks, once I’d nudged the bike forward, its nose pointed downhill into a thicket of blackberries. I couldn’t roll it backwards, my feet slipping, and going forwards wasn’t going to work… and putting down the side stand was dodgy as well.. shit shit shit!

I was able to get just a few inches back, and ended up executing a gorgeous 29-point turn, at one point hopping off the bike so I could more securely wiggle it free and get it at least pointed towards pavement. It took me 5 or 6 minutes of doing, but I finally got it done, breathing hard and sweating like a pig. The kids had long-since stopped whatever they were doing and just stood there, silently watching me like vultures waiting to swoop in and pick me and the bike clean of loose farkles and leftover beef jerky.

I’ve never been happier to put a rally bonus behind me. 😆

This was also the third and final bonus of the 3-part Goethe & Schiller combo, netting me an additional 7,000 points!

Elmira, NY might not be much of a town, but gosh was Elmira College fancy! Parking was severely restricted around the campus, so I finally shrugged and just parked on what seemed like was probably a quiet side street, only slightly on the wrong side of a No Parking sign, and hoofed around the large Harry Potter-looking buildings trying to find this one dude’s statue. GPS was only sort of helpful here, and I was definitely starting to feel a bit wrung out from the heat, wandering around a fancy college feeling unwashed and road-weary. When I got back to the bike, a landscaping crew had parked in front of me, and one of the guys asked if I were a surveyor… which makes sense, I’ve got a phone, clipboard, paperwork in my hand, wearing my motorcycle gear…

The cemetery was one I would’ve loved to explore a bit more, sporting a number of older monuments. Wellsboro, NY must’ve had some history, judging by the stonework, but I started to have visions of a dinner at the checkpoint hotel and a shower, so onward we go.

I haven’t shared all the “flavor text” that is included in our rally books, but here’s a sample of what little nugget of history and context we get as riders for a location:

George Washington Sears (1821 – 1890) was a sportswriter in the 1880s and an early conservationist. His stories, appearing under the pen name, “Nessmuk” popularized self-guided canoe camping tours of the Adirondack lakes in open, lightweight solo canoes and what is today called ultralight camping or ultralight backpacking. Sears wrote Woodcraft, a book on camping, in 1884, that has remained in print ever since. Mount Nessmuk, in northern Pennsylvania, is named after him.

The whole story about how Jim Thorpe’s remains came to be interred in Jim Thorpe, Pennsylvania, a town he had never visited and had no connection to, is a sad one, as is the story of his life and career outside of his achievements in sports.

The rally master had some fun here, as well, making sure that reading comprehension was a skill we were bringing as part of our rally game.

Take a photograph of the statue of Jim Thorpe carrying the football

Because, of course, there were 2 statues of Jim Thorpe flanking his tomb, one with a football, and one with a discus.. and guess which was closest to the parking area?

There were a couple riders here (including at least one of the 2-up teams) and while I was doing paperwork, others arrived. One hopped off a running bike, snapped a photo of the discus statue, then hightailed it north. A couple riders seemed confused about which statue was which… so I helpfully said “Just remember - reading comprehension is a skill!” with a smile and got going. Nothing now but highway between me and the scorers, a meal, and a shower.. in that order!