We are getting close to the end:
Paul noticed this morning how much higher the sun was at 6:30 AM than it had been a day or two ago. There's no mystery --- this is due to our travel in an eastward direction. Its particularly noticeable when we stay for a while in the same time zone. The Eastern timezone is a attractive one, with a western border stretching all the way back to when we crossed Lake Michigan on Day 23. This got me to wondering how many minutes of daylight are we shifting into the morning for each day of travel.
Lets take all the days since Rapid City SD, ignoring the days before then because those routes tended to have a larger North or South component. The distance as the bird flies, if the bird really likes to fly, to Little Falls NY where we are now is 1414 miles. The stage out of Rapid City was day 16, so we've had 14 days of travel, or 101 miles easting per day on average. Each degree of longitude at our latitude is a bit more than 50 miles apart, so lets say we are covering 2 degrees of this latitude line on the world each day.
How many degrees make up an hour on the clock?
360 degrees / 24 hours = 15 degrees per hour (or per timezone if they were even)
So in the six days we've been in the Eastern time zone we've traversed about 12 degrees --- so would expect the sun to be rising 12/15 of an hour earlier, or 48 minutes. The effect will be more pronounced in the next three days as we push farther east while remaining in EDT.
So I suppose you can view each day's ride being like a second hand on a clock, ticking away at the timezones, moving the sun up a little higher every morning. To me this reveals an interesting aspect of our trip: this bicycle mode of travel is slow enough so this kind of time change is subtle, but fast and consistent enough that you notice the cumulative change.
As for the nature of Time itself, its still a mystery to me.
Today I took a small side trip to visit a Russian Orthodox Monastery where we heard some beautiful call & response rituals being performed. A fitting detour for a Sunday
The church had crypts under it for dignataries
This is the ceiling in one of them. That's quite a blessed context for one's repose!
The Finger Lakes are a series of North/South valleys with high ridges between them. Unfortunately we weren't heading in either of those directions so there was a stretch of major rollers: up one hill, over the top and down into the valley just to immediately be confronted with another hill.
Hard to tell, but this is going up about 8 degrees:
And its former courthouse:
The Mohawk River which is part of the Erie Canal system:
Former Masonic lodge in Little Falls, now 12000 sq ft single family home:
Paul noticed this morning how much higher the sun was at 6:30 AM than it had been a day or two ago. There's no mystery --- this is due to our travel in an eastward direction. Its particularly noticeable when we stay for a while in the same time zone. The Eastern timezone is a attractive one, with a western border stretching all the way back to when we crossed Lake Michigan on Day 23. This got me to wondering how many minutes of daylight are we shifting into the morning for each day of travel.
Lets take all the days since Rapid City SD, ignoring the days before then because those routes tended to have a larger North or South component. The distance as the bird flies, if the bird really likes to fly, to Little Falls NY where we are now is 1414 miles. The stage out of Rapid City was day 16, so we've had 14 days of travel, or 101 miles easting per day on average. Each degree of longitude at our latitude is a bit more than 50 miles apart, so lets say we are covering 2 degrees of this latitude line on the world each day.
How many degrees make up an hour on the clock?
360 degrees / 24 hours = 15 degrees per hour (or per timezone if they were even)
So in the six days we've been in the Eastern time zone we've traversed about 12 degrees --- so would expect the sun to be rising 12/15 of an hour earlier, or 48 minutes. The effect will be more pronounced in the next three days as we push farther east while remaining in EDT.
So I suppose you can view each day's ride being like a second hand on a clock, ticking away at the timezones, moving the sun up a little higher every morning. To me this reveals an interesting aspect of our trip: this bicycle mode of travel is slow enough so this kind of time change is subtle, but fast and consistent enough that you notice the cumulative change.
As for the nature of Time itself, its still a mystery to me.
Today I took a small side trip to visit a Russian Orthodox Monastery where we heard some beautiful call & response rituals being performed. A fitting detour for a Sunday
This is the ceiling in one of them. That's quite a blessed context for one's repose!
The Finger Lakes are a series of North/South valleys with high ridges between them. Unfortunately we weren't heading in either of those directions so there was a stretch of major rollers: up one hill, over the top and down into the valley just to immediately be confronted with another hill.
Hard to tell, but this is going up about 8 degrees:
They've got a Madison County here too:
And its former courthouse:
Like yesterday, we went by some very classic and classy houses
The small town of Richfield Springs was hosting a classic car show which was just breaking up as we went through. A fully restored Corvette convertible drove by with the best custom license plate I've seen so far: TOOK YRS
Our destination was Little Falls on the Mohawk River. The Mohawk River valley is a wonder of nature, being so much lower than the surrounding land.
Looking over the edge:
The Mohawk River which is part of the Erie Canal system:
Hi Robert, I’ve really enjoyed reading your blog and traveling vicariously with you this past week since Vikki and I left y’all. Mixed emotions for me between missing the beautiful riding and comaradrerie and being in the comfortable surroundings of our home. Be safe and enjoy the last few days of your epic ride. Kudos to you, Paul and all the other riders for your perseverance in continuing your daily slog when the mind and body aren’t always willing. Until next time... Craig R.
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