I'm locking in the rain

June 16,2019
Happy Fathers Day to all the dads!
I'm locking in the rain. locking in the rain!

When I woke up this morning I could hear the rain gently hitting the boat. Ordinarily this would  signal me to roll over, and let the rain lull ne back to sleep. This mornings response was UGH!  We are going to get very wet today.

Our new friends in the 23ft Grady White took off at 6 am. They were on a mission to get home. We left about 7:30 in the drizzling rain. About the time we approached our first lock of the day the drizzle became steady. I didn't mind the rain for several reasons. There shouldn't be a lot of boat traffic, the rain wasn't cold and I kept my bus duty rain coat after retirement.  Boy was that a good decision.

We were well away from the cities now and the landscape was beautiful. This section of the Erie is actually the Mohawk River and reminded me a lot of the Tennessee River.  Lush green forests would give way to cliffs with a backdrop of mountains. What a beautiful country we have.
The wind was mild making our locking through process wet but calm. The rain continued the entire day, sometimes light, sometimes a downpour. The lock masters would wave from their little houses, probably mumbling crazy boaters!  Each of the locks had a dam adjacent to it. This caused considerable turbulence and sometimes spinning whirlpools making the task of driving into the lock at idle speed impossible.  If he didn't power through the turbulence we could be heading for the falls created by the dams instead of the lock.😱
Lock eight and nine were pretty tame, and an easy ride up. In nine Tom had no rope to hold so he used a boat hook to hook the rungs of a ladder. He thought it was pretty cool until we were almost to the top and he ran out of rungs to hold.
We accomplished four locks before reaching our next stop, Amsterdam Riverlink Park. Tied to a wall with three other Loopers. The park was very pretty. A pedestrian bridge provide access to both sides of town, music played from speakers along the walkway with interesting sculptures and pretty flowers. Oh, and a little trivia. Kirk Douglas grew up in Amsterdam. It was the original home of Mohawk carpet mills which were ruined by competition and saw its final demise in a fire. and it is the home of the Professional wrestling hall of fame.
                                       

                                        This bird helped us find a large rock off channel.

                                                One of the dams, they make pretty falls

 Another dam that looks like falls. You can see why we had to be mindful of the turbulence they cause

                                     Approaching a lock, kind of scary looking don't you think

                              We didn't see this dam until we were at the top of the lock

                                                                       Cliff walls

                                A casino with boat slips. We didn't stop to throw away our money

                   The rain brought on fog in the mountains. Looks just like the little Tennessee

                                       Muck covering the front of my coat from the lock rope

                                                               

                                             A replica of drawings found on a nearby cliff

                                                      Walkway to the pedestrian bridge

          Very interesting sculpture if you look closely you can see a number of animals at the base.

                                             911 memorial, one of the steel girders

                                           Flag with all the names of those lost in 911

                                                          You can see our boat on the left

                                        Some of the swirlies we had to plow through to go in the lock

                                                        View of the park from our boat