Today’s Miles: 42
Total: 1,353
What a beautiful day.
I think this day was the best overall day we have had with weather. We left Niagara Springs and headed north and
crossed back into the US. It feels good
to be back. It was a pretty relaxed day
today. Getting to where the Erie canal
would start for us was a pretty easy ride and the Erie Canal was
wonderful. It is mostly hard packed dirt
and small gravel, but a very smooth ride and very quiet and peaceful. See some
people fishing in it and a few small fish jumping. There are many Canadian Geese and other bird
wildlife. Really nice.
We picked up vegetables for a stir fry over some precooked
rice this evening. Very good. We are camped right next to the Erie Canal
tonight in Middleport. The City offers
this campsite at no charge. There is a
restroom with nice showers in it that are free as well. I guess they are trying
to get the visitors in here. This a
pretty sleepy town. Not much going on.
We are camped right next to a boat that is touring the canal and spending the
night here as well. There was also a sailboat going through the locks in
Lockport that was heading towards the Lakes.
Lockport was an in interesting town. The have five
flights of locks there to lift boats up 60 feet. Each lock is 12 feet. That is the way it was originally built and
they had one side of the locks for boats going up and the other side for boats
going down. They have kept one side for historical
purposes, but have rebuilt the other side to take larger boats and there are only
two locks to get the same lift.
A little about the Erie canal. It runs from Lake Erie to Albany,
New York, I guess there it joins with
the Hudson River which would allow a boat to reach the Atlantic. It was built in 1825 at a cost of 7 million
dollars which is equivalent to 4 billion in todays dollars. I think it took 3 years to build and the
money that it took to build it was earned back in a year. It has been rebuilt a couple times over the
years. Now, it is used just by
recreationalists. We have seen a few
boats on it, but not many.
The Niagara River below the falls.
The newer locks.
The old five flight locks being rebuilt.
The canal and path beside it.
Our camp tonight.
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