Ho hum, another gorgeous day on the Erie Canal... We did have a rest day yesterday, which was almost a shame given the gorgeous weather that we have had in general. The picture at right shows a typical view of today's trip from Ilion to Rome, NY. The canal is getting narrower and is largely man made here since we are near the headwaters of the Mohawk River. We are at the high point of the eastern Erie Canal at about 420 feet above sea level. To get here we have gone through 20 locks with a lift ranging from 8 feet to 40.5 feet. We keep passing cities like Utica, but with the thick forest along the canal we usually see only a small portion of the old downtown area.
I am definitely not complaining since the remote feeling certainly adds to the overall ambiance of the trip. There is a bike/walking path along much of the canal, and we did see several bikers and one lone runner. The picture at the left shows some of the wildflowers and ferns along parts of our trip.
We left the dock in Ilion about 9:05 am after getting a pump out and purchasing some diesel fuel. We went through 2 locks with hardly any wait, and after 25.9 miles, we arrived in Rome at 1:30 pm. We had a 45 ft sport fisherman follow us about a half mile back. Given that it is Saturday, we passed a half dozen small fishing boats and kayaks. We also passed this rather bizarre looking pontoon boats with a pirate ship look. Fortunately, they passed us with only a friendly wave and made no attempt to board us...
We are staying at the Rome City Dock and Park. It really is quite a beautiful area, and today, there was an ever changing selection of people trying their luck at fishing from the dock.
The picture at the left is looking across the park and if you look closely, you can just see the flybridge of Lucky Us docked on this side of the canal. I took the picture while we were waiting for a taxi to take us to a movie theater about 3 miles away. We went to see "A Million Ways To Die In The West". It was pretty funny, but there was a LOT of crude language.
The last picture is of a not very spectacular sunset over a dam that supplies water to the canal. Tomorrow, we will begin to go down in elevation as we head to Lake Ontario, which is about 175 feet below our present elevation. So, we are at a drainage divide where streams behind (east) us drain into the Hudson River, and streams ahead of us drain into Lake Ontario. Given that we do not have an itinerary and are dependent on the weather, we should reach Oswego, NY on Lake Ontario in a few days. The plan is to visit my brother and sister-in-law who live about 25 miles west of Oswego. They live on Little Sodus Bay off Lake Ontario so we will go there on board Lucky Us.
Okay, so I lied about that being the last picture. This one is for Grandson Will. It is a close up of the bow of the canal system tug Erie.
We love you Will (and Sarah and Katie)!
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