In which we get to know Scotia way better than is strictly necessary ...
Yup. Sure enough - I should have stayed awake and helped Rick worry. At 9 am we received the update from the NY Canal authority (they send information each day about things happening on the canal - maintenance, hazards, frickin locks, etc) letting us know that, due to the amount of rain, the locks (starting at lock 8 - remember we just went through lock 7) would be closed to allow them to let water out of the system. Stuck. In. Scotia. (cue dramatic music)
Scotia is just across the Mohawk River from Schenectady and everything there is ... we have now seen/patronized: a diner, a coffee shop, a grocery store, a liquor store, Jumpin Jacks, and an old timey single-screen movie theater.
The theater was showing the new Ryan Reynolds film “Free Guy” so we went to the matinee. Tickets were only $6.00! It was like going back in time. We thought the movie was totally worth it, especially given we have NOTHING ELSE TO DO and it was air conditioned. It had a nice message about taking charge of your life - which will be lost on the gamers who are its target audience. Of course Ryan Reynolds, in any movie, just plays his IRL (in real life, you non-gamer losers!) self, but we enjoy him so it's a win-win.
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| I thought I would never again go to a theater - too many people. But there are no other idiots stuck in Scotia, so we were very safe. |
We did try to make the best of the Groundhog Dayz in Scotia. Although Rick, who has a very rigid set of rules that govern how much one should have to pay for an avocado, bought one for the unacceptable price of $2.50. THEN the pints of ice cream at Stewart Shops were on sale for the SAME PRICE AS THE AVOCADO. This so messed with his sense of the world that he had to go take a nap...
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| We spent some quality time in the Scotia Library - a historic landmark, open only on random days seemingly based on the Druid Calendar, or something else equally indecipherable... |
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| I found us a 'bike trail' to ride. Which had not been ridden on by actual humans since the Eisenhower Administration, apparently. The trail, when there at all - mostly we hacked through underbrush, was only 4" wide. But I felt like, if those little gymnasts can do double back flips on 4", we ought to be able to ride a stupid bike. Note the other sign, though. The gymnasts don't have to worry about Lyme Disease on their 4" - so WE WIN!! |
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| Jumpin Jacks has a water ski show every Tues night, so we got to see the cutie-peas practicing. It was the most exciting thing that had happened to us in days! |
Mostly it was just warm and humid. As the canal authority began to dump water from upriver, the current streaming past picked up speed, carrying lots of debris. Our little finger docks stuck out into the river itself, and over 24 hours a huge mat of debris built up between the dock and the boat. By the time we realized what was going on, it was so thick that we couldn't even jam a boathook through it. It was watergrass tangled around sticks and logs, some huge. It eventually got so thick that it blocked the water intake for the air conditioning system. Which was THE LAST STRAW. We worked on it for over an hour, but finally got rid of it. Knowing that faster water and more debris would be coming, thanks to storm Henri, we decided to get to a sheltered (and expensive) marina.
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