Settling in to the Cruising Lifestyle

Monday, Sept. 10

Saturday was a windy rainy day so we stayed at N. Tonawanda and found a place to watch the
OSU football game and experience the local scene. Nice day.

Sunday was a cool and wonderful day as we headed down the canal. Most of the time we were
traveling through wilderness and farm country. They say this western end is most like the original
canal scene. The Erie Canal played a significant role in the development of  NY back in the 1800's.
We only encountered three boats all day so we haven't put up the rearview mirror I brought
along. Our first locks were a breeze and we didn't even dirty our gloves or fenders. A ten day
lock pass was $50, not bad for all the lock tenders and liftbridge operators needed to operate
the canal. This western end has many liftbridges and all the operators were very friendly and
kept us moving along even though each person had to operate several bridges, driving between
them to arrive ahead of us. We stayed overnight at Medina, a nice clean town with free docks
and beautiful bathrooms/showers.

34 miles


Monday morning was cool, 52 degrees, but beautiful,with mist rising off the water as we started
out for the day. This stretch of the canal is very pastoral, reminding me of the canals in Holland.
Most the day we were traveling through apple orchards, field crops and small towns. We each
take one hour turns at the wheel, intending to travel 6 -8 hours each day. There are so many
interesting towns as we go along it's tempting to stop at all of them, but we only stopped at
Brockport, for pizza at lunch time. We stopped for the night at Spencerport which has new docks with electric and gorgeous bathrooms and it's free. Is it a wonderful world or what? Everywhere
we've been people have been extremely friendly and helpful.

We've been surprised how quickly we've acclimated to the cruising lifestyle. Once Carol
cooked a full meal in her kitchen it went a long way toward her feeling at home. We've
enjoyed cooking steaks and chicken on our grill already. The days are definitely getting
shorter now and we find ourselves going to bed much earlier than we are used to.

33 miles