Continuing on the Erie Canal: There is an Italian restaurant on the canal in Utica NY where we tied up for two nights. We ate at the Aqua Vino the first night, and on the boat the second night.
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| Aqua Vino |
When it came time to pay for the dockage, they reduced the price by $30 because we dined there.
We walked to the Art Deco train station, which is still in use today. The building was reconditioned several years ago, and now houses some State offices.
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| Utica train station |
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At the farmers' market held in the station's parking lot, we saw an amazingly beautiful dog, a cross between a saint bernard and a poodle. This is the first cross of this type we had ever seen. We had seen labradoodles, golden doodles and bernese doodles, but never one like this.
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| "Tank", 3 years old |
Then on through another bunch of locks to Sylvan Beach where the Erie Canal enters Oneida Lake.
Sylvan Beach is a small town with a Coney Island type amusement park--a roller coaster, several dart games, and bumper cars, reminiscent of my childhood. By chance, we got there during their Canal Celebration days. As we arrived, we were told that the waterway was closed for a waterskiing exhibition, so we had to wait almost two hours to get to the free dock in the center of this tiny town.
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| Sylvan Beach town docks, where the Erie Canal meets Oneida Lake |
That evening there was a performance at the amusement park by the Flying Wallendas, an old trapeze and high wire troupe. Even though the show seemed a little dated to us, the kids loved it.
This was followed by a beautiful sunset over the lake shore park:
And just after sunset, there was a fireworks show--very impressive for such a small community.
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| Sylvan Beach fireworks |
The next day we crossed Lake Oneida to Winter Harbor Marina in Brewerton NY.
We will be leaving the boat for the winter at this facility in about a month. But we decided to leave it here for a week or so and drive back to St. Augustine to open the mail and see what else is going on after our 3 month absence.
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| Heated indoor storage where our boat will be kept for the winter. |
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| The marina is beautifully landscaped -- like docking in a botanic garden. |
On the way home, we stopped in Arlington, VA to visit our family and accompany the grandkids to the National Zoo in Washington.
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| Ryan and Abby and Elephants! |
The National Zoo was tame compared to the zoo that we found when we got home--our refrigerator had died, leaving a foul smelling mess of rotted food, I attended two POA meetings, June's computer died, and we dealt with 3 months worth of problems in the five days we were home.
Enough said about that. We were happy to head back north again.
Back in Brewerton, we re-stocked the boat for our journey on the Oswego Canal to Lake Ontario and Canada, but first we drove to Skaneateles, a perfectly charming town on Lake Skaneateles, one of the Finger Lakes.
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| Lake Skaneateles |
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| Skaneateles |
After Lock 23 on the Erie Canal, we turned north onto the Oswego Canal and its 7 locks.
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| Flock of gulls we disturbed on the Oswego Canal |
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| The giant doors of the locks serve as apartment buildings for the gulls. |
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In Oswego, we docked on the town wall between Locks 7 and 8, with our bow pointed toward Lake Ontario at the end of the canal:
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| Oswego |
We visited historic Fort Ontario on the shores of Lake Ontario and the adjacent Safe Haven Museum that memorializes the story of the 982 European refugees who were housed in recently vacated army barracks here in 1944-45 as "guests" of President Roosevelt, and welcomed by the people of Oswego.
And then on to Canada.
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| Oswego lighthouse on Lake Ontario |
At the farmers' market held in the station's parking lot, we saw an amazingly beautiful dog, a cross between a saint bernard and a poodle. This is the first cross of this type we had ever seen. We had seen labradoodles, golden doodles and bernese doodles, but never one like this.
