Erie Canal Day Two

Days on cruise:  83

Distance traveled today:  42.3 miles

Time Traveled Today: 5 hrs 39 mins moving time, 8 hrs 35 mins overall

Total Trip Odometer:  1,921 statute miles

Locks:  7 today, 19 total

 

Good thing the scenery along the Eric Canal is pretty; and the NY Canal employees are very helpful and often friendly too; and we’re getting really, really good at this locking business, having refined many little details about how we do it:  because we still have a lot of locks to go!

We got a slow start this morning, leaving the Riverfront Center at Amsterdam at 9am.  We went through the first 3 locks by ourselves; the next 2 with another non-Looper boat; and the last 2 by ourselves again. All our other boating friends left earlier than we did or were hustling along at a faster speed to get back home.

The last lock of the day, lock #17, was a 40-foot lift, the largest lift in the NY Canal System.  Sitting at the bottom of that lift was weird, and it made our necks sore to crane them to look at the top. It took 25 minutes for the lock to fill, and the ropes and walls were covered in slimy mud.  Good thing Bob bought rubber gloves for both of us for locking!

Mid-afternoon, between locks 16 and 17 (our last of the day), we stopped at a small dock at the Herkimer Homestead and took a tour of the place. Nicholas Herkimer was a Revolutionary War hero, originally from the Palatine area of Germany, but was resettled to New York and became a Brigadier General in the military, a successful and wealthy entrepreneur, and eventually built this Georgian style mansion in 1764.  Our 18-year-old tour guide, Anderson, provided a nice explanation of the place and she seemed to love history.

At 5:30 we pulled into the small, pretty town of Little Falls, where we’re once again tied up to a Canal Wall for $1.00/foot (except the Harbormaster had no change so only charged us $40) for the night, this time with both electricity and water, so Cathryn is doing a couple loads of laundry.

Oh, that brings to mind a story. We have a combination washer/dryer in the master stateroom. Cathryn tried to use it soon after we bought the boat and was disappointed to find it didn’t work properly.  We debated whether to remove it before we began our trip and replace it with a storage cabinet, but we didn’t get around to it.

Recently someone else was discussing how different the marine washer/dryers are from those at home, and Cathryn decided to thoroughly read our Owners Manual and try it again.  Lo and behold, it DOES work, it’s just that she had over-loaded it with too many clothes so the drum wouldn’t turn.  It only takes 7 pounds of clothing per load, which basically means we’ll wash underwear, t-shirts, socks and the like, but continue to use laundromats for large loads like bedsheets, towels and jeans (if we ever wear those again). So you should be reading less often about our taking time to do laundry at marinas!

We are VERY committed to making tomorrow a shorter travel day with fewer locks.