Wed Sept 8: Phoenix Wall to Baldwinsville Free Wall

In which we narrow down the retirement options ...

With Phoenix successfully crossed off of our “best place to retire” list, we headed for Baldwinsville (that's a mouthful - I'm going to call it B'ville from here on out.  Like a local).  You can see from the screen shot below, as the crow flies we are not far from our destination, but time on the boat is often like football time...  So it took us about 4 hours to travel what would have been 10 minutes by car (thank you, google maps).   We traveled back down the short section of the Oswego Canal and on to the western section of the Erie Canal.  Just to give you a heads-up, the next few days will challenge Rick’s sanity with a number of very low fixed brides to go under (we measure around 15.5 ft high and bridges coming up are reported at 15.6 ft), but today travel is easy with only one lock and no low bridges.  So Rick tried to remember how to relax.

Us on the right - so close, yet so far, from destination B'ville.

 

Again, we had to cruise along very slowly to avoid creating waves/wake.   All long the canal are signs imploring boaters to be careful with their wakes.  Some are more creative than others!

Please SLOW DOWN, bitches - LOL!

The leaves are starting to turn and we see hints of the bright colors that, we hope, will increase in intensity over the next weeks.

We came through the beautifully maintained Lock E24 (so far the warnings about terrible Erie lock maintenance we have not found to be true) (in fact we have been charmed by several lock masters, the last of whom gave us a tasty ripe tomato direct from the garden he had in front of the lock house) in the center of B'ville and tied up to the free town wall just beyond the lock.  Docking is free but they also offer a power pole for a fee of $10.  

Perhaps it is an homage to the Baldwin brothers...??

Blue Horizon tied to the town wall just past lock E-24.  I find these pictures handy later, when I can't remember what a particular town dock looked like.  Until I saw this pic in the blog, I COULD NOT remember this town.  Even tho we liked it!

B’ville, is a booming metropolis compared to Phoenix - and many of the other towns along the canal. We got out bikes and rode a large loop to explore, and stop at the supermarket (I mean we have to stop at the supermarket, right?) whicih was surrounded by corn fields.

It was such a peaceful dock - other than the Geese and Duck gangs fighting it out to see who could make more noise and poop.