The Erie Canal

The Husband's sister Susan and her husband Joe came north for a visit this Columbus Day weekend. They were lucky to catch not only some leaf color, but also 2 days of pretty nice warm weather. Of course today they have to drive back to PA through the remnants of Hurricane Nate, but it's not supposed to be too bad.

It is grey and rainy here today. The brightest part of our morning was breakfast with Sue and Joe at The Barnwell Inn where they stayed for the weekend. Thanks to Tara and Mark, now we don't have to eat for the rest of the day. Husband got some of his favorite peach cobbler.

Yesterday we abused our visitors by taking them on a tour of the Erie Canal. It is something we have been wanting to do... We like to avoid the tourist traps unless we have relatives we can drag along.

Captain Jerry made the trip quite interesting with that tour-bus-driver kind of chatter along the way. Other than the lock itself, there really isn't much to see, but we were pleasantly entertained by his knowledge of the history of the canal.

We went to Lock 18 where they lower the boat 20 feet in some magical feat of engineering with no motors. The 100-year-old GE motors are only used to open and close the gates at either end.

This is the Bicentennial celebration of the Erie Canal—begun July 4, 1817. The part we were on was not the original, but built in 1905 (?). Parts of the original canal were visible, including in front of the Fort Herkimer Church. Nicholas Herkimer, legendary Revolutionary War general in the Battle of Oriskany, was commander at the fort.

And here's my bit of historical chatter:

The brother of General Nicholas Herkimer, Hendrick Herkimer, was owner of the Herkimer Farm. Our little 20 acres is a small part of the old Herkimer Farm. The Herkimer Cemetery is just a few feet from our property line, and the original home from the late 1700s and the hop-picker's barn (AKA Charlie's Magic Barn) are at the end of our driveway.