In which I love the smell of Bonine in the morning (to paraphrase Apocalypse Now) ...
We are now in the last couple of weeks of cruising for this season and the only schedule we have to keep is to be at Winter Harbor marina by the time the locks close on October 13. We have mapped out a tentative schedule that will take us slowly out the canal westward to around Fairport, close to Rochester, and then back to Brewerton via Cayuga, Seneca and Onondaga lakes. This stretch of the canal has a number of low bridges, less than 16 feet tall and, as we don’t want to lower the canvas top and we are about 15.5 ft tall, our final destination may be determined by the bridges we can go under and not by how far we want to go. In fact, these low bridges are ALL THAT RICK CAN THINK/TALK ABOUT right now. It might just be easier to lower the damn canvas top - but I kinda think he wants to see just how L-O-W C-A-N W-E G-O...
The first stretch of travel today takes us across Lake Oneida to Phoenix, NY which is just up the Oswego Canal to the first lock going north. We won’t go any further north this year, but next year if all goes well once we pick up the boat we will go north on the Oswego Canal to Lake Ontario and in to Canada. For today we need to cross Lake Oneida - still a bit stirred up from yesterday’s blow, so for the first time in many days I took a Bonine to prevent any queasiness. Yummy. But we needn’t have worried - we crossed the lake without incident. Once back into the canal we stopped at Winter Harbor (yes, the same place we will come back to in a few weeks) for some diesel fuel. Rick is trying to calculate the amount of fuel we will need as closely as possible, so that when we leave the boat for the winter there is a minimal amount of diesel fuel left on the boat. I'm just glad he has something to take his mind off bridges.
I have to admit it was a little hard to leave Winter Harbor. We both were a little tempted to just turn over the keys to the boat. I guess we are about ready to be done. But we won't get a chance to see this western section of the Erie again, so we peeled ourselves away. We had to cruise this populated section of canal slowly so as not to wake the many houses, docks and boats all along our route. Apparently this is a more popular section to live in than the eastern section!
The big excitement of the day was arriving at "three-river” junction, the intersection of the
east/west Erie Canal and the Oswego Canal going north. You can see our Phoenix destination in the distance (just to put your anticipation to rest - there is NOTHING rising from the ashes there).
 |
| Junction of the three rivers. |
At the junction we turned north and cruised the last few miles to the dock wall at Phoenix. We had read and heard that Phoenix is a “must see” )so we were immediately suspicious). The town advertises a fun program called “Bridgehouse Brats”, which is a kind of youth group centered on the docks during the summer - it sounded cute to see. Apparently the teens in town hang out around the dock and offer volunteer services like boat washing, running errands, etc., for boaters. Unfortunately we arrived after Labor Day - we should have realized, due to past experience, that many things magically cease to exist after that date.
Once settled we put on our walking shoes and went to explore. It took about 20 minutes to walk from one end of the town to the other and it appears that Phoenix is another one of the canal towns that is hanging on by a tread.
 |
| This is the 'town museum' - a one window affair. A drive-by museum! |
There are a few businesses - a distillery (closed on Tuesday), Ice cream shop (we did have a cone!), hair salon (looked to be doing okay business), a bakery (closed both times we went by) and a couple of restaurants (we did come back to Duskees Sports Bar to get a burger and salad for dinner - pretty good food), but it feels like it isn’t going to make it without a major investment in redevelopment.
 |
| The town center = the dock. |
 |
| Everything looks better at sunset. |
As usual, our philosophy is to stay relentlessly optimistic and cheerful - and to Go With The Flow!
No comments:
Post a Comment