Monday July 5, 2021.
Temp: 88/58, Humidity: 48/87%, Top Wind: W16 mph, Precip: none!, Miles Traveled: 32, #of Locks: 2
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We knew that today was going to get 🥵 hot, so we planned an early blast off. But we were trapped by a lift bridge which doesn’t come alive until 7:00am, so that was our departure time. We were up and ready, and our plan was to skeedaddle before other boats, because we don’t know who is going where, and we will definitely want a spot with power tonight! We called the bridge operator right at 7:00 from the wall, and he said to bring it, so we did! The lift bridges here on the Erie Canal just go straight up in a horizontal fashion, so they don’t really provide a huge amount of clearance.
Looking back at the boats still sleeping in Fairport. See y’all up the waterway!
The town of Fairport is doing even more to entice more boaters to come and stay. This whole new dock/wall area was under construction. It was a fun town, and I can see why people who live and work around Rochester would come here for a getaway.
These were some really attractive townhouses that we rode by yesterday on the bike path. We haven’t seen any other really attractive multi-family units along the canal, but these were really very nice.
This kind of shows the path where we rode our bikes yesterday. And there’s a cute little canal boat coming toward us. These are from www.eriecanaladventures.com. What a fun opportunity for people to experience the canal!
As we’ve been going through bridges, we’ve had more ‘air space’ than we’ve expected. There was this marker on the wall just before a bridge that showed that we had well over 16’ of air space as we went under. This was really helpful to see, because I have printed out a whole list of bridges from canals.ny.gov, and we could compare the actual air height with “normal” and discovered that we have nearly a foot of extra air compared to “normal” here. 👍
Another shot of the beautiful path that follows along the canal. Like I said yesterday, most of it is gravel, but it is like teeny tiny almost sand kind of gravel, so it ‘s very easy to walk and bike on.
It took us an hour to get to Pittsford, seven miles away. There are so many little docks with pontoon boats that we don’t want to drench them all with a big wake, so it was faster to ride our bikes here yesterday than it was to get our boat here today!
It really is a cute little town, and there were dock spots available!
This is one of THE lowest bridges on the canal. The height is listed by the canal as 15.65’. We were surprised to see a water level guage here because we’ve only seen a couple of them on the whole canal. The good news was that the water was low so there was actually more than 16’ of air clearance. Sweet!
It still looked really close though!
By 8:20 we had arrived at our first of two locks today. Lock 32 would be a 25’ lift, and we didn’t have to wait long for it.
The walls had cables which are nice in a big lift like this. Captain got me to a cable for my mid line and I looped it around and tied it off so that we had lots of slack. Then he backed us up for me to get a line around the cable for the stern, but it was still too far away, so I had to go loosen the mid line again. It was really no problem because he could hold us on the wall while I did all the juggling, and we could talk to each other easy schmeazy with our headsets. What was crazy was that the lock doors were closed and water was coming in before I finally got both lines around the cables and secured! This lock master was speedy gonzales!!
Only one mile farther and we were at lock 33, and it was open and ready for us. This one was also a 25’ lift, and the walls were super smooth for a change! We had cables again, and these were a little closer together so it wasn’t so crazy as the last one to get everything all set.
Whew! We have 64 miles to go to the next lock, so we’ll get a day with no locks. YAY! We are now at about 513’ elevation, and only two more locks to go to get to Lake Erie level.
We had lots more low bridges.
This was kind of a cool shot. This was near the area where the Genesee River intersects the Erie Canal. The Genesee flows north up to Rochester.
This area is also known as the “Rock Cut” which required probably the most intense and extensive work in completing the canal.
The canal had to be cut through miles of solid rock. Can you imagine? Without modern day engines and technology?
Our next obstacle was a lift bridge at the town of Spencerport. There are two lift bridges here about three miles apart, and the same person operates both bridges. When we arrived, we called on the radio and got a garbled response. Fortunately there are phone numbers provided in Active Captain, so we called her on the phone. She had just let a westbound boat through this bridge and she was headed to the next bridge west for them. So we needed to hang out and wait a bit until she was done there and came back to this one. Patience grasshopper.
I snapped a couple of pictures and wondered if anything was open in this little town on this holiday.
Once the kayaks got out of our way, we pulled over to the wall, tied up, and shut down the engines to wait.
I got off the boat to go see how the lift bridge works, and took a pic of our Girl.
Pretty soon, the bridge tender lady called us on the radio and said that she’d get the bridge open right away. And away we went! The bridge just lifts straight up from the level of the canal walls to about 16’ clearance from the water. We tootled along and a little canal boat went under going east.
We just went about six miles an hour on our way to the next bridge, since the lady had to drive there to let us through. She actually beat us and got the bridge opened right away.
For awhile it seemed like we were tootling along in an irrigation canal through farmland.
We had a highway on one side and farmland on the other, but still the Canal trail with people walking and biking all along the way.
Meanwhile, as the scenery went by, we checked in with the home front. It looks like Tropical Storm Elsa MAY miss our house. Never a dull moment when you have property in Florida! Our neighbor is keeping an eyeball on our place and our truck that is parked outside. Hopefully we won’t hear any bad news.
We arrived at our destination for today – Brockport. It was a slow day…. 32 miles in nearly 6 hours! And then I didn’t even take a single picture of the spot where we are parked! We found a spot with no trouble, but by evening, all the spots are full. I’m glad we came early. When I went to check in at the Visitor’s Center, I saw these “butterfly weed” flowers and there were several monarch butterflies hovering around, but none of them wanted their picture taken.
After a little bitty nap, we walked over to Stoneyard Brewing Company. They have food and drink, so Kenny tried a beer, and I saw that they had some of the Apple Pie Whiskey from IronSmoke Distillery! So I ordered that with ginger ale, and it was good! What is this world coming to that I would order whiskey?! 😳 We had burgers for an early dinner, then had a guest join us. I had a text message earlier today from a ‘future looper’ who lives nearby. He had watched our little AGLCA interview last month and asked if he could come meet us and talk boats and looping. Sure! We had a really nice visit with Joe, and we’re hoping to see him again in the next few days as we make our way closer to Buffalo and Niagra Falls. We invited him over to Island Girl to talk boats and boat features, which was fun.
Later on, I realized that it was after 6:00, so riding our bikes four miles to the next little town was probably not a good idea. So we decided that we’ll stop by there in the morning, tie up, and wander a bit. That left this evening to meander around Brockport a little. There is a detailed walking tour online that gave us an idea of what route to walk, but there was so much information that it was hard to look at everything since there was so much to read! So I quit reading and just looked. Now I have to figure out what I took pictures of.
This was the First Presbyterian Church, built in 1852. It was neat because there was a big vegetable garden in the front yard!
This building caught our curiosity. What the heck was it? A garage? But it had a people door on the side, and two levels?
Then we figured it out. We were on the side street. When we got to Main street, we could see that it belonged to this really fancy house. The curious building was actually the carriage house for the horses and carriages! This big fancy house was the Morgan-Manning House built in 1854.
As we walked all around, there were LOTS of huge old homes that have been converted into rental rooms for college students. The State University of New York (SUNY) has a campus here in Brockport. It just seemed odd to have these magnificent old homes turned into frat houses? rentals? This was just one of them that we saw, but there were dozens with “rooms for rent” signs in the windows. I guess it is summer time, so there are lots of empty rooms right now.
Here is a shot of part of the college, along with a Munsters kind of house in the front yard.
St Luke’s Episcopal was built of Medina stone in 1854. We’re going to stop in Medina tomorrow, so then maybe I can get to scoop on the stone. I just find stone buildings to be so interesting and cool. I wonder what the significance of red doors is? I’ve seen them on so many churches in the last couple of weeks.
This is the United Methodist church on a corner of main street, with shops and pubs and restaurants right down the sidewalk.
I just thought this three story brick building was neat. It was built in 1871 and had all kinds of deatil on the window arches and up around the roof line. Surprisingly, on the back side was painted a restored “Ivory Soap” advertisement.
Back at the canal wall, there was this interesting piece of whimsical art. Oh! You can kind of see the Ivory Soap commercial in the background!
I’m glad we had a chance to wander around town. There are a lot of pubs and pizza joints here…. = college town. None of the shops were open today and I think we’ll move along to another town tomorrow.
Here is what we did today. We skirted around Rochester and we’re headed west to Buffalo. Just two locks and twelve lift bridges to go!
