Scotia

Scotia Landing
N 42.821583 W 73.953808

On Monday we moved from lock 7 to Scotia. Since we have a borrowed car, Libby drove the car and I took the boat alone.

The journey by river is not a long one; only 7.5 miles. However I have never seen that stretch of river from a boat before and I was struck by how beautiful it is. The river is hemmed in by cliffs on both sides. Sheer 90 degree limestone cliffs on the south and 70 degree wooded cliffs on the north side (see the pics below). It comes up behind the Knolls Atomic Power Labs, and the General Electric R&D center; although neither is visible from the river.



After a stop at the Schenectady Yacht Club for a pump out, I continued on to Schenectady and then to Scotia.

This is really ground zero for us. To our right is our former home in Scotia and the school where John and Jennifer started kindergarten. To our left is our former home in Schenectady's Stockade neighborhood and the school where David started kindergarten. Also to our left was Libby's art studio. Also to the left is Collins Park where my friend Ken and I flew my gas powered model helicopter. Behind us is the PTI building where I worked for 17 years, and in front is the old General Electric Schenectady works where I worked for 4 years. Also in front of us is the Western Gateway Bridge with narrow sidewalks. John Undrill and I used to cross that bridge every day on our way to work riding on a bendy and hard to steer tandem bicycle. We used to scare ourselves on that thing and absolutely terrorize any poor pedestrian who saw us coming. The spot where we are docked is almost exactly the spot that we came to for Fourth of July fireworks every year. Yes indeed. We have lots of memories from this locale.

In the afternoon I went out to buy new eyeglasses. I've needed them for more than a year, but we've been waiting for an opportunity to get to a Lenscrafters. They are the only ones that offer one hour service. All other optometrists that we can find require 10 to 14 days to make glasses. We can't use them because we are always on the go.

I'm also going to try to connect with my dentist while we are in the area.

This morning, after posting the first draft of this blog, we were visited by Tom. Tom's wife Kathy sold our house for us two years ago. Tom happened to be in Scotia and happened to see the blog just posted and realized that we were near by, so he stopped to say hello. That was a nice surprise. Soon after that, we had a visit from Carmello, my sailing buddy. Last year Carmello and his wife sailed with us from Cape Judith to Cape May

I'm beginning to realize that we have so many friends in this area that no matter how many we see this trip, we'll leave 95% of our other friends who may be disappointed that we didn't stop to say hello to them. I apologize to all of you. Our days here are limited, and we are operating ad hoc without a plan. So I'm sorry that we missed you.