An easy leg with lots of preserved canal structures and interpretive signs. Many aqueducts, locks, dry docks, and bridges. The route started on road. An early stop at the Erie Canal Museum in the Syracuse old downtown. The museum is right on the canal route, and preserves a weigh lock and the original building. The canal is no more, now it's Erie Boulevard. The air quality was bad at Syracuse, but forecast "hazardous" in Rome. I brought masks on the tour, but I stupidly left them in the bags that went in the truck to be carried to Rome. Chatting with a few riders at the museum, we decided to phone SAG and ask them to contact the rest stop crews, in case they could pick up masks to sell at the rest stop. Sure enough, at the first rest stop, the volunteers were handing out N95 masks, free. Gotta love Parks and Trails New York! After the museum, we rode Erie Boulevard a few miles to join the awesome paved bike path in the median of Erie Boulevard, which runs more miles to the entrance of the Empire State Trail on the towpath of the canal, once again visible. That's where the historic signs and structures appeared frequently. The trail is paved for miles, then many more miles of smooth crushed stone. The last couple of miles to the campground in Rome were on road. Tonight we're camping at Fort Stanwix National Monument. The fort figures prominently in Erie Canal history, as it guarded the Oneida Carrying Place, a primary link to the west before the canal, where goods and boats were carried from the Mohawk River to Wood Creek to reach the Great Lakes. I stopped at 7 Brew Coffee in Rome to fill my Zojirushi. I didn't know it was drive-thru only. They were fine with ride-thru. But too expensive. It's comfortably cool here in Rome, but still smokey. I'm still wearing my mask at camp.