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We are making the "Great Loop" - up the east coast, through the Great Lakes and into Canada, and then down the Mississippi and around Florida. It promises to be the adventure of a lifetime! We invite you to join us through our blog.

Wednesday, June 29, 2011

Old Steamboats

These were so cool! They all waved and most of them tooted. I hope we see some more tomorrow!
































Erie Canal - Day 1

What a busy day! We started at 7:00am with Sea Flat and The Cooper. If you saw the photo of a lady-like version of Ryder the other day, The Cooper is her boat (Gigi is her name and she's 3). We arrived in Amsterdam, NY, at about 3:00 this afternoon.

We went through 10 locks today, 32 miles, and rose about 235 feet. The water levels have been pretty high, and they are spilling water over the dams. There are a few photos where you can see the water really boiling below the dam, which makes the water a little squirrelly as you approach the lock. It also means that there was more debris, some of it of a pretty good size. We did alright in the locks - only one of them gave us any trouble as far as holding on.  Ryder tried to jump off the boat when we got to the top of the first one, but the top of the side was curved and she almost fell in. She managed to scramble up, was handed back to us, and didn't try it again.

The Erie Canal was originally made by local residents getting together to help create a route from the Hudson to the Great Lakes - a much cheaper way to move goods than over land. It has been updated, rerouted and basically rebuilt in places. I tried to find remnants of the original canal along the way. Most of the present day canal traffic is pleasure craft. There is a state trail along the original and the present canal, with bike paths, parks and historical stops.  We saw some of these today.

One of the highlights of the day was seeing quite a few vintage steamboats. They were traveling in groups toward Waterford for a gathering of steamboats. It was very cool! Most of them whistled at us as they went by. Since the steamboat sighting meant lots of extra photos, I am making them an entry by themselves.

Off we go!

An old part of the canal

Coming to the first lock of the day

The Cooper ahead of us

We put a line around this cable to hang on while the water level rose

Note the rounded top. This happened to be concrete. Some of the others today were metal - there would have been a very wet pup!

One down - nine to go (for today)

New and old together

Second lock of the day
















This shot is a nod to Sam Roberts, neighbor of Steve's parents. Sam liked to paint everything blue. Granted, this is mostly yellow and blue but I think Sam would have liked it.



Luckily, this tree was snagged on a rock.

It threatened rain most of the day, but never really did.

This almost looks like home!



A little too chilly to swing into the water today

Several goose families


Letting LOTS of water out.

At the top of this cable, there was a little bird nest in the box.


It's exhausting being Ryder.

This place was huge! It was in our book. It's called Llenroc and it is 30,000 sq ft!


Part of an old aquaduct



We got peeks at mountains now and then.















These little guys were so cute!





A tree snagged on a marker