Tuesday – Day 53 – 9/23/08

When I got up this morning and stumbled to the door, all I could see was fog and when we left the 73 ft. boat (Seas the Moment) we were docked with. Yes it was cool in the boat due to having a single 30 amp circuit available, but this time I started the generator turned on the heater and the chill was gone in fifteen minutes. The fog lifted enough that we were able to get underway by 0830 and by 0930 it had completely disappeared leaving us with a beautiful blue sky and temperatures in the low 70s. We stopped for a few hours in a town called Ilion, NY, home to the Remington Arms Factory. We walked to their museum which was next to their factory. It turned out to be well worth our time and effort. We dropped another 20 feet thru one more lock (picture below is of leaving one of the many locks we have passed through)into the Mohawk Valley and decided to stay in a town called Little Falls, NY. The scenery (right) is spectacular. The valley is flanked with very high tree covered cliffs. If I were to compare it to Starved Rock, the cliffs are twice as tall and go on for as far as the eye can see! The town is now quiet but in the past it was a leader in manufacturing and the biggest producer of cheese in the U.S.! With the Erie Canal available the cheese was shipped to New York City then exported to Europe. As we continue to move east we are reminded daily of our heritage with numerous historical land marks and home sites of famous people from the 1700’s. I think of all the hours spent studying history in school and never connecting the dots, then taking a trip like this and everything falls into place.

Tomorrow we will leave Little Falls and drop 40 feet through the deepest lock in the Erie Canal system. Instead of having doors that swing open to let us out of the lock, the lock has a lift gate that is raised for we can pass under it when leaving! I was told there are only two locks in North America constructed like this.