Pit Stop in Pittsford Village

Ahoy mateys - KG here giving Tony the night off from blogging.  I'm sitting at a picnic table on the banks of the canal next to Dragonfly, listening to a pretty good 70's/80's cover band playing at the patio across the canal, watching the parade of bikers and walkers strolling on the canal walking path and I'm feeling fine! (I'm trying to figure out if the tambourine player over there is part of the band or an enthusiastic listener which is why I'm not blissed out).

The view from my picnic table.  You might be able to see Tony lounging in the cockpit of the boat setting the route for tomorrow.

We had another lovely day traveling on the Erie Canal today - once again we had LOTS of bridges to pass under, but only one lift bridge right as we left Brockport, because most of the bridges in this section were in Rochester and those were plenty high.  We crossed the Genessee River in Rochester, and then passed through locks 33 and 32 shortly thereafter and that experience really drove home the difference between the lock traffic on the rivers that we experienced last fall and the lock traffic on the canal.  On the rivers, the priority for the locks is the shipping of goods.  On the rivers, we ended up waiting long periods of time as the massive barge trains were locked through and the small recreational boats were the last priority.  The Erie Canal is no longer the conduit for freight from the Great Lakes to the Atlantic Ocean so it exists chiefly for recreation.  So, today, instead of waiting for barges of goods to be moved through the locks, we had to wait in the lock while a canal tour boat that had just been locked up on-loaded what appeared to be a school field trip that was behind schedule, and get the safety brief over with so they could exit the canal and we could lock down the other way. The end result was still the same - waiting periods we have no control over - but since the weather was good and we don't have a strict schedule to adhere to it just added to the experience.

This trek across New York on the Erie Canal so far has been incredible.  Many of the things I loved about traveling down the rivers are present here on the canal: the verdant greenery all around, plentiful birdsong, abundant water fowl. (well here instead of the Pelicans we have countless families of Canada Geese with goslings of all sizes everywhere we look).  The difference with the canal is that instead of the wide expanse of the wildlife refuge that we traveled through along the river, the canal is so narrow so you are submerged in the lush greenery and can easily hear the wind rustling the trees and the cacophony of the birds.  I had no idea how beautiful this was and suggest that everyone should take a week and rent a canal boat somewhere along this waterway and experience it.

We also passed through another section of the canal that had to be dug out from rock - you can see the layers the workers had to dig through to make the canal here.  I can't imagine the backbreaking labor.

We ended the day after tying up on the Village of Pittsford Wall, finding our first ice cream of the 2024 journey at the excellent Pittsford Farms Dairy and walking around this lovely village that happens to be the hometown of my 612 Endurance Teammate Sally Centner.

Bonus laugh - from an old New Yorker:

Medina to Brockport, NY

It was a chilly 48F under clear skies and a light north wind when we woke up this morning in Medina. This entire week we’ve been bombarded by cottonwood seeds—the pic below was the surface of the canal next to our boat.

We went 25 miles, to Brockport, NY, passing under three more guard gates and six lift bridges. We had planned on seven, but one of them was temporarily removed for refurbishment. It was incredibly peaceful and serene today, with calm waters, and forest or farmland beyond the towpaths, now used by bikers and hikers.

We saw few other boats—here a couple of them enjoying the day. 

Brockport is working hard to attract and welcome tourists. Their visitor’s center along the canal is staffed by friendly volunteers and has bathrooms, showers, laundry and a lounge. They have facilities for boaters on the town wall, allow bicyclists to camp on the lawn and have free loaner bikers for all to use. We got the best spot, right in front of the bathrooms and laundry and close to everything.

It stayed sunny and pleasant with temps in the mid-60s. We took advantage of the weather and the laundry machines and while waiting for it to finish, we lounged outside, then Kathleen played her fiddle and I did some boat maintenance and cleaning. We ate dinner aboard, then walked around town and along the canal before playing Carcassonne in the cabin, then called it a day.

Lockport to Medina, NY

We awoke to a little more rain, but it ended for the day before our 9:00 AM underway. As we prepared to depart for the double 25-foot drop at Locks 35 & 34, it was the first time we didn’t call ahead on the phone or VHF to make arrangements. We had met the Lockmaster in person when we tied up yesterday and just walked over to his office this morning. The people here couldn’t be nicer—not only did he efficiently get us through the locks, he moved a huge driftwood log out of our path with a massive boathook before we left the lock wall, and called the first bridge downstream to let us know we were coming. We went under three lift bridges today, which are road bridges that even our dismasted sailboat is too tall to clear when fully down. The New York Canal Corporation, which runs all of state’s canals, saves some money by having roving bridge operators, which cover two or three bridges. The procedure is to call them and let them know you're coming; they open the bridge, let you under, close it, get in their cars and drive to the next bridge and repeat. It gets complicated when there is two-way traffic, but we only had to wait at one of the three bridges for the operator to arrive.

We cruised 17 miles to Medina, NY, population 6,100, and the largest town in Orleans County. Like Lockport, Medina didn’t exist until the Erie Canal was built, but later became well known for its sandstone, which was used in the Brooklyn Bridge, the State Capital in Albany, Buckingham Palace and thousands of other buildings around the world. Map link: Medina, NY

Building the canal here posed a major challenge—curving around a bend and crossing the Oak Orchard Creek gorge and its 45-foot drop. The solution was to build an aqueduct to carry the Erie Canal over the gorge, with the creek running underneath. Another day, another 19th-century American engineering marvel. The challenge was even greater when the canal expanded in the early 20th century, and was widened while remaining operational. The result was the massive, high-strength concrete aqueduct seen below, with the creek barely visible behind the trees.

We tied up to the free town dock, complete with water and electric, and went exploring. After seeing the aqueduct, we stopped at the house where Frances Folsom lived with her mother and grandmother before marrying President Grover Cleveland in 1886, when she was 21 and he was 49. Fun fact: Cleveland is the only U.S. President to marry while serving in the White House. Creepy facts: Besides the 29-year age difference, Cleveland was law partner and best friends with Folsom’s father, knew “Frankie” from infancy and she called him “uncle Cleve” while growing up. 

Bonus Question: Who was the only U.S. president to never marry? (Answer at end of post).

Our next stop in Medina was the public library, to log into their WiFi and get some personal business done, Then we walked across the railroad tracks to the Medina Railroad Museum, constructed inside an old freight depot, and housing the largest model train set in the state, with a 204 x 14 foot footprint.

Lastly we walked to the grocery store and back, before dinner at Fitzgibbon’s Public House, which had great food, a terrific Irish rock playlist and a nice view of Dragonfly at the dock.

Bonus Question Answer: James Buchanan, our 15th president, remained a lifelong bachelor and was the only president who never married. 

North Tonawanda to Lockport, NY

Our wish came true this morning, and we caught a break in the forecast—the rain was going to hold off until the afternoon and the winds wouldn’t be as bad as yesterday. As we got ourselves ready, we found that our codes no longer worked to get into the bathroom building to shower. If I’ve learned anything from watching Jerry Seinfeld, it’s that good and bad luck must always balance out. We accepted our fate, packed up our boat and our unwashed selves and left North Tonawanda. We did pass a man bathing nude in the canal (no pics) so I guess that was an option. 

Next stop was Lockport, NY, 17 miles away. We cruised through scenic Tonawanda Creek until reaching The Deep Cut, a 7-mile portion of the canal that was dug through solid rock. There is a 5 mph speed limit on the Erie Canal, and many waterfront property owners help you to remember it with signs like this:

We also passed our first guard gate, which is a device used to stop water flow in the canal for maintenance or an emergency, such as a break in the canal wall or extreme high water. In the photo below, you can see one gate down and the other up, allowing water (and boats) to pass through.

Lockport, NY did not exist until 1820, when the final route of the Erie Canal was decided. Work on the canal began in 1817, but engineers had not solved the problem of how to lift barge traffic up and over the Niagara Escarpment, an imposing ridge of limestone that spans the northern states (think Niagara Falls). They finally settled on a location with “only” 60 feet of elevation change and the town of Lockport sprang up around the construction site. The final design called for two sets of five locks in a stair-step fashion (called a flight), allowing for two-way traffic. The flight locks at Lockport and the Deep Cut were the last items completed before the Erie Canal opened in October 1825. The original Flights of Five were replaced by a single flight of two locks in the early 20th century, which still operate today.

We are tied up at the lock wall that separates the top lock in the original flight and the upper modern lock. We secured Dragonfly, had lunch at Tom’s Diner on Main Street, then hit the museum circuit to learn more about the remarkable engineering feat that we are literally moored to (see below, above Kathleen’s head). Map link: Lockport, NY

One of the original Flights of Five has been preserved and is still operational, although no boats use it. Here are two of those locks, with the manually-operated doors open in between and a replica of a barge used to carry goods in the 1820s. 

The rain did arrive in the late afternoon and kept up until dark, keeping us inside the boat. We had leftovers for dinner and watched another Looper boat dock behind us, only one of three other vessels that we saw today. 

Memorial Day in The Twin Cities

We are enjoying a weather day in Tonawanda/North Tonawanda, separated by the Erie Canal and known in Western New York as the Twin Cities. Tonawanda, population 15,000, and North Tonawanda, population 31,000, began as sleepy villages that exploded into large lumber centers after the Erie Canal opened in 1825. The canal here is actually Tonawanda Creek, which had always been used for commerce, but the growth was rapid once it was connected to the Atlantic Ocean.

It rained overnight, then we were awakened by the noisiest Canada geese that we’ve ever heard, bickering in the canal and on the adjacent lawn. More rain poured down most of the morning, then high winds in the afternoon kept us at the dock. The same is expected tomorrow and we’re hoping that the forecast is wrong, so we can get moving.

It’s Memorial Day, and we honor the fallen from our military ranks. We never wish anyone a “Happy Memorial Day,” since the holiday is to remember, not celebrate, those who died serving their country. In contrast, Veterans Day is to honor those who served, in war and peace, and are still living. Bonus Question: What were the original names of these two U.S. holidays? (Answer at end of post)

Once the rain cleared out, we logged two walks along the canal: North Tonawanda before lunch and Tonawanda after. We saw dozens of goose families, with goslings of all sizes, and understood why the geese near our boat were so crabby this morning—they are parents of youngsters.

The Buffalo area is full of bison statues, and we saw a bunch today in the Tonawandas. Some look like the real thing and others are painted in homage to the hometown Bills football team. 

One more thing of interest from our walks is the North Tonawanda Bascule Bridge. Also called a “jackknife bridge,” this style of drawbridge has a massive concrete counterweight on one end to balance the weight of the bridge when it pivots. Built in 1919, this bridge was the product of an aggressive state transportation mandate that demanded the Erie Canal be opened up to tall-masted ships. When the cost of replacing the hundreds of bridges on the entire canal was added up, the plan was quickly scrapped. While still an active railroad bridge, local lore has it that this bridge has never opened since its 1919 ribbon-cutting ceremony.

We ate dinner onboard and played cribbage in the cockpit, despite the wind. It is such a joy to spend so much time outdoors again, with plentiful daylight. It’s a huge, positive change from the end of our Florida cruise in January, when it was cold and dark by 5:00 PM.

Bonus Question Answer: Memorial Day began in 1868 as Decoration Day, when graves of Civil War dead were adorned with spring blooms. It was eventually expanded to include all Americans who died in military service. Veterans Day was first observed in 1919 as Armistice Day, one year after the end of World War I.

Buffalo to Tonawanda, NY—we’re on the Erie Canal

This morning started with a surprise dense fog advisory, which delayed our departure from Buffalo Harbor until 9:45 AM. While we were waiting, we got in today’s wildlife sightings:

We proceeded north through Buffalo Harbor in calm conditions, except for the occasional fishing boat wake. We passed many of the sights on the city waterfront that we had seen from land and a few new ones. We also went under the Peace Bridge, with Canada on the other side.

After leaving Buffalo Harbor, we were briefly in Lake Erie, a first for us, then entered the Black Rock Canal and through the lock of the same name. This canal and lock were built to bypass the reefs, rapids and fast currents on the Niagara River as it first exits Lake Erie and heads north to Niagara Falls. We dropped five feet in the lock (Fun fact: This was our 50th locking on the Great Loop) then entered the Niagara River, with a 2-3 mph boost from the current; still brisk but nothing like the 7+ mph that we avoided, not to mention the reefs and rapids. A moderate north wind was against the current, creating a meaningful chop, and that and the frequent powerboat wakes roiled the waters until we turned right to enter the start of the Erie Canal in Tonawanda.

If you’re familiar with the Erie Canal, or are the rare human who knows the lyrics to the Pete Seeger folk song (yes, Evans family, I’m talking about you), you are aware that the original canal went from Albany to Buffalo. The strong currents on the Niagara River were too powerful for the mules and horses pulling the barges in 1825 and the Erie Canal was extended (with pickaxes and shovels) parallel to the river all the way to Buffalo. When mechanized propulsion came into being later in the 19th century, the canal was shortened to Tonawanda and the river and Black Rock Canal were used to get to Lake Erie. The same was done on the Hudson River at the other end of the Erie Canal, and it now stops in Waterford, NY, not Albany. It’s a good thing that Pete Seeger didn’t have to rhyme anything with Tonawanda.

We traveled 15 miles today and are docked at Gateway Harbor in North Tonawanda, On both sides of the canal here there are docks and walls for vessels to tie up to, some with services and others without (we have electric, water, bathrooms and showers). Map Link: North Tonawanda Gateway Harbor

The docks, walls and canal are a parade of holiday weekenders, many engaged in informal competitions to see who has the loudest voice, stereo system and boat engine. We have had several visitors to Dragonfly, some attracted by our AGLCA burgee and others with the all-too-familiar question of “is that a sailboat?” The weather was beautiful, so we escaped the hustle and bustle for a couple of hours on our folding bikes, heading south along the Niagara River on an outstanding bike path that basically retraced our steps on the land side of the river we had just traveled on. We turned around at the Black Rock Lock and returned.

Back in North Tonawanda, we walked a few blocks to dinner at Spring Asian Cuisine, where we both enjoyed excellent Thai food and saved enough for another meal. After a FaceTime video chat with our daughters, we hung out in the cabin and waited for the noise to settle down so we could fall asleep. It’s expected to storm tomorrow, so we’re staying put.

More Buffalo, NY

We awoke to a calm and beautiful morning, with temps already in the mid-60s. The noise in the marina quieted down significantly last night (presumably from all of the baby boomer boaters like us who poop out by 9:00 PM) and we got a good night’s rest. Our first task was to provision the boat while we still had our truck, so it was off to Wegmans Foods, a large east coast grocery chain. As we were leaving the store, the sky was clouding up and the temperature was falling, evidence of an approaching front, and rain was indeed forecast for later in the day. We stowed our new supplies aboard Dragonfly, then went to the airport to pick up our daughter, Amy, who is borrowing our truck for the summer. Amy was on her last leg of consecutive flights from Tahiti to Los Angeles to Boston to Buffalo and arrived ahead of schedule and in good spirits. I’ve always envied people who can sleep on airplanes. We had a quick lunch together at Charlie’s Boat Yard, and finished our outdoor meal on the deck just as the first of the rain was moving in. We said goodbye to Amy after an all-too-short visit and she drove east towards her summer job on the coast of Maine.

After Amy departed, it rained for several hours, so we holed up in the boat’s cabin and read, crocheted (Kathleen) and napped (Tony). About 4:30 PM, the rain stopped, the skies cleared and it was a beautiful day again, so we decided to get out the folding bikes and do some more sightseeing. Buffalo is criss-crossed with bike paths and it was easy to go straight from our dock into downtown. Our first stop was the Buffalo and Erie County Naval and Military Park, an impressive collection of four decommissioned Navy vessels and other military memorials. Afloat in the harbor and available for tours are the destroyer USS The Sullivans, light cruiser  USS Little Rock, submarine USS Croaker, and patrol craft PTF-17. Also on display is the sail of the submarine USS Boston, which was a sister ship to the two Los Angeles-class nuclear submarines that Tony served aboard (USS Jacksonville and USS Omaha). 

The USS The Sullivans was named after five brothers from Waterloo, IA, who perished together aboard the USS Juneau when it was sunk by a Japanese submarine at the Battle of Guadalcanal in 1942. It was the greatest military loss by a single American family in World War II. Contrary to popular belief, this event did not cause the Navy to change their policy regarding family members serving under the same command. Officially, the military discouraged siblings from requesting duty together but never prohibited it. 

While we’re on the subject of service member sacrifice and loss, one display at the park particularly moved us. On the lawn in a beautifully landscaped area are 7,300 American flags, one for every veteran who lost their struggle with post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) since Memorial Day 2023. That’s 20 Americans per day in the last year who served their country and paid the ultimate price, not on the battlefield but afterwards, and this sobering statistic made us sad and angry about the magnitude and causes of this problem.

Adjacent to the military park is Canalside, a touristy waterfront area built around the original starting place of the Erie Canal. In 1810, New York Governor DeWitt Clinton mocked Buffalo as a village “…with five lawyers and no church,” The completion of the Erie Canal in 1825 put Buffalo on the map and started a period of profound economic growth, as well as for many other communities along the canal that prospered once the waterway opened. 

We enjoyed some more of Buffalo’s bike paths before heading back to the boat, eating dinner aboard and planning for our departure tomorrow.

Buffalo, NY and vicinity

We spent a full day sightseeing in and around Buffalo, NY, the state’s second-largest city and home of the Buffalo wing. The city has a rich Presidential history—Millard Filmore and Grover Cleveland are native Buffalonians, President William McKinley was assassinated at the 1901 Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo and his successor, Teddy Roosevelt, was inaugurated here. 

We still have our truck, so it was much easier to get around town. Our first stop was Glen Falls in nearby Williamsville. We are 22 miles from the much larger Niagara Falls, but we’ve been there several times and decided to skip it, especially on a holiday weekend. Glen Falls was much more our speed, with no crowds and a lovely walking path up to the falls, where we met this cute little snake.

Next we went to the Theodore Roosevelt Inaugural National Historic Site. Roosevelt did not attend the 1901 Pan-Am Expo, but was summoned to Buffalo when President McKinley was shot twice while greeting the crowd, something he enjoyed doing, often with very little security. Roosevelt stayed with a friend, attorney Ansley Wilcox, while McKinley lingered for over a week, appearing to recover but eventually succumbing to gangrene. Roosevelt took the oath of office the same day in the Wilcox home, which is now a national park museum.

Today was a gorgeous day, with blue skies, temperatures in the 70s and a light west wind. Our next stop was the Buffalo and Erie County Botanical Gardens, part of the Buffalo Parks System designed by Frederick Law Olmsted. It was too early in the season for many outdoor blooms, but the conservatory, modeled after glasshouses in London, held an outstanding assortment of tropical, desert, carnivorous and other plants and flowers.

We had lunch at the Wayside Family Restaurant, a family-run greasy spoon that does the basics well. Bonus Activity: Our lunchtime placemat is shown below. There are nine bumblebees hidden among the ads—can you find them?

Our last tourist stop was the Buffalo Transportation Pierce Arrow Museum, an eclectic display of bicycles, motorcycles, automobiles, gas pumps, clothing, toys, and much more. Fun fact: The auto industry in early 20th century Buffalo was larger than Detroit. Buffalo car makers, such as Thomas Flyer and Pierce Arrow, focused on high-end, luxury vehicles, while Detroit manufacturers concentrated on low-cost, mass production, and Detroit eventually surpassed its geographic rival. Pierce Arrow did not survive the Great Depression, closing in 1938. Here are some of our favorite photos from the museum:

1896 side-by-side tandem bicycle 

Classic Corvette collection

1904 Pierce-Arrow Tonneau; one of only two in existence

1947 Playboy Motor Car. Fewer than 100 were ever sold,
but Hugh Hefner liked the name and copied it for his magazine.

1932 Pierce Arrow Sedan, with power steering, power brakes,
 cruise control, tilt wheel and air conditioning 

This evening, we dropped off our trailer in Amherst, a suburb of Buffalo. I used Neighbor, an app that is an Airbnb platform for private storage, and our trailer will spend the summer in somebody’s backyard. The owners recommend Duff’s, a local chain, for dinner, where we enjoyed—what else?—Buffalo wings. We returned to a traffic jam at the marina, since Chappel Roan is performing a sold-out show on the waterfront just north of the harbor. Charlie’s Boathouse and the marina are packed with revelers getting started on the holiday weekend, making for a lively evening here in Buffalo.