Albion, NY to Seneca Falls, NY

Saturday 16 June 2018

The ride was from Albion, NY to Fairport, NY

Sunday 17 June was from Fairport, NY to Seneca Falls

Saturday morning Ed, Sophie, and I had breakfast is a good diner in Albion called the Village Restaurant.  Good food and friendly service.

 After breakfast Ed and Sophie headed west along the canal path to go home  and I headed east.

lots of Cottonwood pollen laying on the canal

Lift Bridge

Lift bridges rise to allow boats to pass.

Carp feeding on alge

movable dam that can shut off water flow in case canal repairs are necessary.  The dams are positioned a few miles apart so sections of the canal can be drained if necessary.

Lift Bridge

Little bits of information about the Erie Canal.  more information can easily be found doing an internet search.

The Erie Canal is 339 miles long from Waterford (Albany) to Tonawanda (Buffalo). Including its laterals, the Champlain, Oswego, and Cayuga-Seneca Canals, the entire system mileage equals 524.

Erie Canal max height

It has a vertical clearance of 21 feet between Waterford and Three Rivers (Oswego Canal junction), and 15.5 feet between the Tonawanda and the Niagara river. The largest vessels that can make the entire journey must be under 300 feet long, 43.5 feet wide, 9' draft, and a maximum 15' 6" height above the water.

The below is from Reddit AskHistorians

What happened to the Erie Canal during the winter?

 There are actually 3 canals, which is confusing because the Thruway Authority insists on calling the 3 phases the Erie Canal. Canal 1: Clinton's Ditch, Canal 2: The Enlargement, Canal 3: The Barge Canal. In some places all 3 phases of the canal ran the same course. To answer your question, at first the designers and political champions of the canal thought it would be feasible to use the constant traffic and a sort of ice breaker to keep the canal open even in winter. It took less than one winter to realize that ice would heavily damage canal walls and the canal would need to drain and close during the winter months. Because there is a series of locks from Buffalo to Troy, NY the canal would (and still does) gradually begin locking off, or closing locks and draining water, at a pre-determined date/time. The winter draining also provided a time to dredge the canal as many pieces of debris and garbage found their way into the artificial waterway during the operating season. The Erie Canal currently operates from May 1 to November 11. 

Information boards are placed along the path.

soybean 

cornfield

more soybean

The way the farmer parked his equipment would make a good John Deere commercial

Sunday evening, friends from Tucson, Scott and Peggy Jacobsen stopped by the hotel I was staying at and we went out to dinner.  Scott and Peggy have a home in New York and winter in Tucson. It was great seeing them.