About Face

Lock 20
43 08.59 N 075 17.51 W

Victoria decided that two days was enough so she asked her mother to come fetch her. That's OK. Libby and I enjoyed having her for whatever time we could.

Soon thereafter, I got a call from David about our upcoming trip. He's delayed a week or more departing Alaska. Uh Oh. That means a revamp of the travel plans.

I started thinking about how to revamp and pretty soon my head was spinning. In the past, I've written off such lapses as adaptations to the cruising life where we never have to worry about schedules. Everybody knows that sailors and calendars don't coexist easily.

I think though I've been a little too hard on myself. This replanning job is harder than most. In normal circumstances, to make trips A, B and C, one needs only to select departure dates. If however, after trip A the boat leaves on passage X, then that affects both the date and the city for trip B, and eventually C also. In this case, I had to decide whether to continue West on the Erie canal, and if so which city to depart from, or to turn back East and whether to depart from Albany or from Burlington for a flight to meet David. In the meantime, we have to choose a city to depart from for a trip to Potsdam.

After 20 minutes or so, my head stopped spinning enough to choose a plan. We'll cancel the rest of the trip Westward on the Erie Canal. Instead, we'll return East. We'll depart for Potsdam from Amsterdam NY on July 7. After that trip, we'll go up to Lake Champlain and I'll fly out of Burlington to meet David in Fairbanks, or Seattle instead of Flagstaff. Whew! I almost needed a pert chart for that one.

So instead of rushing, we find ourselves with leisure time. We could be in Amsterdam in 2 days, but we have a week. We'll stay here at Lock 20 to watch another free concert Thursday night. (I told you we like this place.) Then, we'll find a place between here and Amsterdam to watch 4th of July fireworks this weekend.

Happily Stranded

Sylvan Beach, NY

43 11.74 N 075 43.69 W

This morning we arrived at Sylvan Beach with the intention of crossing Oneida Lake. When we got here however, the lake was already too rough. Waves were breaking over the jetty and the spray from the breaking waves flew horizontal from the wave tops. With Victoria on board it would be inappropriate to attempt anything rough.

Therefore, we'll stay here for two days until the weather settles down. By supper time, 6 other cruising boats pulled in behind us. None of them want to cross the lake either.

However, our layover gave us the excuse we needed to arrange for a reunion. In high school, Libby's best friend was Emily. The two of them did everything together. Indeed, my first date ever with Libby was a double date with Emily and her future husband Baden. We haven't done a good job of keeping in touch tough, it has been more than 40 years since we've seen them.

Emily and Baden live near by so today we called them. They were very happy to hear from us and they came right over to Sylvan Beach. We spend the afternoon chatting. The four of us also took Victoria on an excursion to search for a near by geocache. We didn't find it.

Emily and Baden, being so nice, invited us out to dinner. After dinner they drove us to the top of that ridge I wrote about a week ago. The ridge top in Madison County, NY is today a big wind farm. The wind mills there are 233 feet high and very impressive when seen close up. Indeed, they look majestic.

Strangely though, one of them fell down last winter. Until the investigation to why it fell is complete, the entire wind farm is shut down. Therefore, it looked pretty silly to see all those massive wind machines sitting still on such a windy day.

One The Water Again

Lock 21
42 12.51 N 075 36.87 W

We had a great family weekend. Nick had great support from his family
and friends. I'm sure he'll remember that for many years.

Now however, we're back on the boat and moving west once again. Good
news! We have our granddaughter Victoria with us. Today is a rainy
day so we didn't push much for progress. We moved only 7 miles from
Rome to Lock 21.

Lock 21 is such a splendidly isolated and tranquil place that our
cruising guide says, "It is so quiet that city people will have
trouble sleeping here." That's perfect for today; our main mission
is to allow Victoria to get used to the alien environment of living on
a boat. Victoria already has a collection of wild flowers and goose
feathers gathered locally.

Tomorrow, we'll make better distance and cross Oneida Lake. I just
checked the weather forecast. It says W at 35 for Wednesday.
Definitely, we won't be crossing the lake or moving westward on that
day.

Looking ahead I have two very pleasant dates. On July 7, Libby and I
will drive to Potsdam. I'm going to give a couple of lectures at my
alma mater, Clarkson University, in Potsdam. Potsdam is where Libby
and I lived the first year of our marriage, and it's a pleasure to
visit there.

After that trip, I'm hopping on a plane in Syracuse. I have a one way
ticket to Flagstaff, Arizona. There I'll meet my son Dave. Dave is
moving from Fairbanks, Alaska to Raleigh, North Carolina. He'll drive
his car to Flagstaff and meet me. Once there, we'll be tourists.
We'll visit the Grand Canyon and then follow our noses eastward in a
cross country car trip. It'll be like Jack Kerouac senior and junior.
I think it will be great fun.

So, between now and July 7, we have no agenda, no plan. We'll just go
from day to day in search of fun.

The Graduation

Boonville, NY

No LL

It is Saturday at 10AM. We are all here in Boonville at the Adirondack High School for Nick's graduation ceremony. The rest of this weekend, we'll be off the boat having a family celbration. Sorry, no more blogs till Monday.

Info

The place that does the galvanizing is

Hubbell Galvanizing
40 Greenman Ave.
New York Mills, N.Y. 13417
800.244.4258
link