| The Great American Loop #3 |
 Dave Bernheisel  Click on the link above for more information. Basically, Dave says, they're boating up the coast to NY, then up the Hudson to Troy, across the Erie Canal, through the Great Lakes, by Chicago, down the Mississippi, around Florida and home. No small journey, eh?
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Posted 07.08.02 On the Great American Loop
Aboard the Going There into the Erie Canal
We started into the Erie Canal with the Flight of Five. These are five locks in quick succession that lifts you 210 feet in a little over a mile (a world record -- for people who concern themselves with records like that).
The locks are interesting. Each is like a small park with picnic tables, etc. which the general public seems to use quite a bit. One, as we came through, had a school group getting a history/physics lesson; all have lots of fishermen.
We are getting more comfortable with the locking. The trick is to not get complacent.
I read an account of a couple going up where the lock had floating bollards to tie to (very nice). They tied off and were attending to other tasks because this was a foolproof system. That was until the bollard jammed. When the boat started to heel, the guy realized he was in trouble.
He tried to untie the line but it was jammed. By the time he got a knife and cut the line, his boat had sustained serious damage. Moral: Locking is a single-focus task.
The first night in the Canal we spent in Amsterdam. We hadn't been there long when another boat came along. When I went to catch his lines, he seemed short-handed.
He was an elderly man with a blind dog on a Grand Banks 42 (if a Mainship 34 is a Chevy Nova, a GB 42 is a Mercedes 500SBIG. He has been cruising the boat for five years and is now on his way home to Wisconsin from the Bahamas (he did the Loop four times) all by himself. It's quite a trick, especially in tight situations.
Amsterdam is an intriguing town. At one time most of the carpets were made here (even Cabbage Patch Dolls), but those industries are all gone. Now the town is trying to recover.
We stayed at a beautiful park with a close-by shopping center they built to revitalize the waterfront and downtown. But, to get to the park you have to cross the roof of the shopping center (which is 2/3 empty), then cross a causeway over the Interstate and the railroad tracks. Someone once said, "If you build it, they will come," but it may be a long wait.
The next day it was on to Little Falls. Among other locks, this took us through Lock 17 which is notable for two reasons: first, it is the highest lift on the canal (40 feet), and second, it has a lift gate as opposed to gates that open like French doors.
In Little Falls you feel like you are up in the mountains, even though it is less than 500 feet above sea level. It is a neat little town that thrived when the spinning mills were in vogue. Still, it has a lot of charm, not the sad old lady like Amsterdam.
Then it was on to Sylvan Beach at Lake Oneida. After twenty locks going up hill, we are now going down.
More later.
Dave & Mary |
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