June 30 - LOCKS, LOCKS and more LOCKS - From St. Jonesville to Ilion

What a beautiful day for traveling the Erie Canal!  And since I keep thinking of the song we sang in grade school about the Erie Canal - following is a link to a U Tube video for your viewing and singing pleasure: https://g.co/kgs/rZGFzhg

We left St. Johnsville a little before 10 am, because the first lock #16 did not open until 10.  Managed that one smoothly!  It had a lift of 20 feet.

Then came Lock #17!  It has the highest lift of any lock on the Erie Canal at 40.5 feet.  YIKES.  The process went fine but putting that many hundreds of thousands of gallons of water through the lock system takes about 40 minutes. So that means 40 minutes of holding the boat with the lock lines.  Can anyone say sore hands or back?

On to Lock #18 - piece of cake at 20 feet lift!

Between all of the locks you may only travel at 5 miles per hour, so we went a whopping 21 miles in 5 hours. We did have a guest rider - a beautiful butterfly joined us!

Decided to spend the night in Ilion, because we were hot and tired! And so, we would be up bright and early tomorrow for more locks!

Ilion was once the headquarters for Remington Firearms and Beechnut gum. Beechnut still makes baby food, but no longer makes gum - remember Fruit Stripe Gum?? Remington is now headquartered in Huntsville, Alabama. 

The marina was delightful, and we finally got our Ice cream!

Canadian boat Blue Moon entering Lock 16
Tower at City of Little Falls where Lock 17 is
Under the bridge and then enter Lock 17
                                                        Going under the gate at Lock 17
                                                                View from inside the lock
The lovely line you get to grab onto
Can you say slimy?
Beautiful rock formations along the canal
Gate along the canal
Our butterfly rider
Sign from the past
Ilion Marina









                                                            







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