Erie Canal Day 8 (or really, Niagara Falls Day 2) Part 1 - Cave of the Winds!

Well, oof, the usual March march at work marches on, all work and no play makes Bonnie a boring blogger, but recently overhearing someone complaining about how Niagara Falls wasn't as amazing as they expected did remind me that I had promised more Niagara back in a January post and never done that. So here we go, on with Day 2!

We were in total tourist mode here on my first ever visit to Niagara Falls, so of course we had to visit the Cave of the Winds, which is not actually a cave anymore. Once upon a time, there WAS a cave, and tours were offered, but it was closed after a rockfall in 1920 and then "obliterated in a massive 1954 rockfall and subsequent dynamiting of a dangerous overhang" (thanks Wikipedia). The tour had reopened in 1924 using boardwalks and stairs and today the Cave of the Winds is really the Boardwalk of the Winds. Interesting notes about the construction - there's no foundation, the support poles are just shoved down into spaces in the boulders at the base of the falls, and they take off the decking and store it in the wintertime when the ice buildup would take it apart. That must be quite the job, and the initial construction must have been hair-raising. Great attraction though, so amazing to get right up to the falls like that.

The photo above was taken on our first day in Niagara Falls, and I was loving that people were getting right under the falls the way they were. The next day it was our turn, and we had a blast! Once again, the fall visit worked out great, we were able to get our ponchos and slippers and get right onto the elevator without waiting at all, and then of course for this we were very lucky to have almost summery weather. Photos below, although after a certain point I had to pack up my camera because there was just too much water for it, next time I'll have to bring the waterproof one! That's it for the writeup, click on the first photo below for a slideshow view.

Erie Canal Day 6 - Clyde to Hibiscus Harbor, our last stop.

10/15/2016 - So I think this was the only day where we did actually do fifteen miles - no mule named Sal though (oh, come on, I had to refer to that song at least once in this writeup!), and only part of it was on the Erie Canal - part of it was on the Erie Canal, part of it back on the Cayuga-Seneca Canal, and the last leg back on Cayuga Lake. Locks 26, 25, and C-S 1. I forgot to write in my journal on this day, we had to hand Nameless Nomad back at 10 the next morning so I think we just got really busy collecting our stuff and cleaning up, and then I just didn't think of it. I did take all sorts of pictures though!

Morning in Clyde 

We were off to see the Mill Museum, which is run by the Galen Historical Society, and which was recommended highly in the touring info provided by Cruise-USA. 

Unfortunately, we missed the bit about how in the off-season you should call to make arrangements to see the place. There was actually a telephone number on the door which you could call if you wanted, but we didn't want to see it quite badly enough to call this person and ask them to drop whatever plans they already had for the morning, so we just checked out the farm equipment they had outside and then took off. 

The local fire department was having a demo day. I think if they'd set this car on fire, we would've gone down to watch them put it out, but there was no actual fire involved, so we watched from the bridge for a bit and then headed back to our boat. 

Erie Canal from the Route 414 bridge

Back on Nameless and heading east again. Never did get a shot of an Amtrack train but here's another CSX train passing a grain elevator, just outside of town.

Locking through at Lock 25. I must have been driving at Lock 26, no pictures there. Everything is so neat and well-kept along the canal (or at least the pieces I've seen now) - yesterday's "post post" was  just a joke, but I took the photo because I liked how even a simple stencilled sign like that looked so sharp in the canal system's blue and gold. TQ was lucky enough to even get a look at some of the lock machinery at one lock - we'd sounded our horn to let the lock master know we were there, and then nothing happened for a surprisingly long time, so TQ went ashore to see what was going on and found the lock master just finishing up some routine maintenance. He said it was pretty neat to see. 

Tender #1, just outside of the lock. I was sorry we didn't have the good luck to run into the Urger, but I was glad to get a nice shot of this smaller tug. 

Approaching our exit from the Erie Canal -

More NYS Canal System work vessels

Hello Cayuga-Seneca Canal,

So long Erie Canal. What a good visit.

Another hawk (and I would bet that there were more herons and kingfishers too, but the day before had been so good for bird photography, I think I was finally satisfied that I was bringing home some acceptable shots to share).

Lock CS1. From the Cayuga-Seneca Canal Page: "Lock 1 is in a scenic location and lifts boats 25 feet. The area and lock is traditionally referred to as Mud Lock due to the soft land (a former swamp) it is built upon. When leaving Lock 1 to Cayuga Lake be mindful of the buoys and your depth. This area is quite shallow outside the channel. Once in the lake, there is the option to continue south to Ithaca or immediately turn to the west and continue along the Seneca River to Seneca Lake." Our itinerary did give another overnight in Seneca Falls as an option, but with a good cleaning needing to be done before we handed the boat back over at 10 the next morning, we decided it would make life simpler if we just spend our last night at Hibiscus Harbor.

Back to Cayuga Lake

Home again home again jiggety jig

Sunset at our journey's end. Or at least the part of the journey that was on a boat. Where shall we go next? Hmmm. To be continued!

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POST post

Erie Canal Day 5 - Newark to Clyde

Morning in Newark. That's our little Nomad over there. This was a nice time of year to do this, so little traffic!

10/14/2016 - Newark to Clyde. 15 miles, 3 locks (28B, 28A, and 27). Another beautiful day, and we'll start out with a little more history. 

Remember these great murals I showed on the Day 2 post? Here they are again in case you missed them. 

They're on the abutment of the bridge shown above, with more on the outer wall of the boater services area, on the canal-level floor of the white building (the dockmaster's office is upstairs). They give some interesting historical information. Here are a couple of samples: 

This one's a little hard to read due to the texture of the wall and the angle of the morning sun, so I'll transcribe:

Jesse Hawley 

Grain (?)  Merchant

While in prison for debt, because he could not find an economical way to ship his goods, he published fourteen essays on the idea of the canal from the Hudson River to Lake Erie. Hawley's essays were to prove immensely influential on the development of the Canal. 

This was a particularly good day for birds - I got my best heron shot of the trip, plus a nice one of a red-tailed hawk (anybody ever wondered if a redtail's hawk is really red?), and at one point a bald eagle flew low over the canal right in front of the boat. I was driving but TQ grabbed my camera and got a shot as the eagle circled over the trees.

We passed the Grouper again today. I'd brought the photo of the Grouper that I'd posted for my Day 2 trip report to the attention of Tugster, I only knew this tug's name because I'd seen her over there. I mentioned that I thought she had really nice lines, and he responded, "there are dozens with the same lines. Grouper has many siblings. At least one will survive if not she." Click here to visit Tugster's post showing a number of Grouper's sister Great Lakes tugs, a fleet dating back to the early 20th century, many of which are still being maintained and operated.

BTW, Tugster also said, "Btw, one could buy grouper now for $1, a 1912 machine for 100 pennies." I swear, if I knew either a little bit more or a little bit less about old boats...but on the off chance somebody who DOES know what they're doing happens to stumble across this, Click here for Tugster's email to get more info. He would really love to see someone take on this project! 

Back to the locks. Here are a few more pictures of locking through. I've understood the concept behind locks for as long as I can remember, I'm sure that was one of the nautical things my dad told me about when I was a kid, but seeing them at work I was really kind of blown away by the brilliant simplicity of the concepts - the big gates meeting at a slight outward angle so that the pressure of all those tons of water itself hold them firmly shut, and then the raising and lowering of the water level being done by simply opening valves and letting the water seek its own level, as it does. Pretty amazing, and very cool to see it in action. Lock 28 A. 

The lock masters were all very nice and almost every one of them asked us about our destination for the day - if we were going on to the next lock, they would call ahead so that the next lock master would know we were coming and have the lock all ready for us when we got there. As I'd mentioned, the lack of traffic was one of the benefits of an October trip!

Instructions

In Lock 27 at Lyons. Coming from upstream, we start with a nice view of the Canandaigua Outlet.

Going

Going

Gone! :D

Back to the Peppermint Capital of the World - 

And now we're down on the level of the outlet.

Erie Canal workboat waiting its turn

Workboat in Lock 27

Something tells me this might be Clyde.

Another nice waterfront park here

A couple of views of the town of Clyde

TQ had noticed that they had his favorite kind of park grill, so we hunted down a couple of steaks and some charcoal in town; I packed up some brussels sprouts and potatoes in foil packets to go under the coals while he got the fire going, it ended up being a terrific dinner. 

Lovely evening light

The big show here was the moon, nearly full here on our last night out on the Erie Canal.