Lyons to Oswego

 We left Lyons headed to Baldwinsville.  This was a 7 hour ride and it rained the entire time!  

Passing the Montezuma aqueduct ruins. 

We made it to Baldwinsville just before dark and called it a day.  

Thursday morning we woke up to bright sunshine and clear skies.  Took care of some chores and explored the town.  This town was pretty big compared to others we've visited, but very quaint.   

Baldwinsville has an island between the lock and the mainland.  On the island they have a stage, where they have live concerts June to August.   

This is the dam next to the lock wall where we stayed. 

We had several dinner options here!   On our walkabout we kept an eye out for how busy each restaurant was.  Several restaurants have good ratings....but the one's that have good ratings and full tables has got to be good.  The busiest place with a 4.9 star rating was The Angry Smokehouse.  Enough said!  It did not disappoint........soooo good I forgot to take a pic!

Friday afternoon we pushed off from Baldwinsville, NY headed to the city of Oswego via the Oswego Canal, but decided to take a 10 mile side trip to Brewerton to top off our fuel before crossing into Canada.  The side trip to Ess-Kay Marina saved us $2 a gallon, well worth the trip!  And as a bonus, a group of us Loopers went to dinner in town thanks to the marina's courtesy car!   

This is where the Eastern Erie, Western Erie and the Oswego Canals converge.  

Saturday morning we left Ess-Kay Marina in hopes that we would make it through Oswego Lock 7, which closed at 5pm.  

Fellow Loopers behind us in the lock...this was a deep drop!

We made it to Lock 6 at 4:55, but the Lock Tender graciously offered to go ahead and open Lock 7 for us!  On the other side of Lock 7, we tied up to the wall in Oswego. Sunday was a boat cleaning and provisioning day.  

Look at all the Loopers waiting for the weather window for crossing Lake Ontario Monday morning!

 

Brockport to Lyons

Saturday we left Brockport headed to Spencerport.  We got a very nice surprise!  Spencerport Fire Department was having their annual festival!   It was pretty good size with two bands and the Fire Department was running a charity casino right on the canal.  Talk about great timing!   

Sunsetting over Spencerport.

Roxie enjoying a walk around the boat.

We made our donation to charity on the Black Jack table.  

The bands were really good!  Begging Angles and Trist.  

Sunday we slept in and had a big breakfast before heading out on our 5 hour run to Fairport.  We will have multiple fixed bridges, a couple of lift bridges and two locks to transverse today.

One of the fixed bridges was close!

Sunday afternoon we settled down on the wall in the village of Fairport, NY.   Had dinner at Donnely's Public House.

Woke up to rain today.  "Rainy days and Mondays always get me down"....but just for a second. 😊

The forecast is for rain all day and we were itching to go so after I got off work we pulled our lines and headed out anyway.  We have two locks to go through today. 

So weird to see roads and shopping centers along the canal. 

We got to Newark, NY and stayed on the wall there.  It really did rain all day!  Dinner and movie on the boat!  

Tuesday morning we woke to sunshine!  After work and doing a couple of loads of laundry, we headed out to Lyons, NY.  We had a couple of locks to go through.  

Due to the 2.25 inches of rain the day before, the dams were flowing over.  The lock just before the wall in Lyons had a dam right next to it and it was churning!  The current made docking on the wall in Lyons just a little bit more challenging, but not too bad.   Had dinner at The Pour House.  

Wednesday morning we woke to another full day of rain!  While I worked, Willy walked over to McDonalds to grab breakfast.  We are missing fast food!  He took this pick from the bridge on his way back with a Bacon, Egg and Cheese Biscuit, Hashbrown and large Diet Coke for me!! Yum!

 

Buffalo to Rockport

After leaving Buffalo we headed north on the Western Erie Canal, we went through Guard Gates and the Lockport locks.  That evening we tied to the wall at Gasport Lions Memorial Park.  The next day we continued our journey to Albion Canal Park, stayed on the wall there and had dinner at the 39 Problems, a nice little pub just steps away from the boat.      

Coming up on a Guard Gate.  There are 20 of these on the canal.   Guard Gates are used to control water flow in the canal.  The gate on the left is down and the other stays open to allow boats to pass.   

Settled into the 1st Lockport lock waiting to descend 25ft.

The lock after descending down 25ft.  Then right into the next one!

Settled in at Gasport.  Notice the haze from the Canadian forest fires! 

Little waterfall along the canal.

Walking around the Village of Albion.  

Yesterday 6/8 we landed at the wall in the town of Holley.  Although the town was really small, the dock was attached to a beautiful park with a pond and hiking path to a waterfall.  The wind finally died down a bit and we took advantage of the park grills and grilled us up some meats!  Really nice night! 

Cheers on the wall at Holley. 

On Friday we made a very short hop to the town of Brockport.  On our walk we found that this is the home of The State University of New York....it's pretty quiet so most of the students must be on summer break.  We also found the Brockport Historical Fire House Museum and monument to 911.  We enjoyed dinner at The Custom House.   

   

We made it to Buffalo!

We came into Buffalo around 6:30am, and tied up to Canalside Marina. First order of business after docking was getting Roxie up to the park as quickly as we could.  She would not even consider going on the potty mat.  After we settled in and had a little breakfast we laid down for a nap.  

Picture from the helm during our overnight run.

View of the sunrise coming into Buffalo, NY.

Later in the afternoon we went exploring and found the Buffalo Bandits Lacrosse team was having its championship playoffs.  It was like being at a Buckeye game.  We also visited the casino and had dinner at the Draft Room Brewhouse where we helped root the Bandits onto a victory!   

The next morning (Sunday 6/4) we enjoyed a long dingy ride up the Buffalo river and found a cool spot that had food, drinks and live music called the River Works. We also worked on preparing the boat for the next leg of the trip, which included taking down the mast. While we worked on the boat we got to enjoy live music coming from the park. There was a large Pride event going on with multiple stages!

The River Works

Cool picture of an abandoned ferry we found on our dingy ride.

Cheers at the Buffalo Canalside Marine with her mast down.

On Monday 6/5, we left Buffalo heading for our first lock going North, the Black River Lock.  We landed on the river wall in Tonawanda, NY about two hours later.  Took a nice bike ride around the little town and enjoyed dinner at Moonies.   

Cheers on the wall in Tonawanda.

This is the Jack-Knife Bridge in Tonawanda.  It was built in 1919 by the N.Y. Central Railroad.  At the time, NY had plans to rebuild all bridges along the canal to allow passage of vessels with masts.  The idea was dropped because of projected costs.  The bridge was raised only a few times for testing and has never been raised since. However, it is a working train bridge! 

Untied The Lines!

We moved aboard full time April 28th, from our tiny apartment in Delaware OH.   We spent the month of May prepping the boat for our trip.  On May 31st, we untied the lines and headed East.  We just did a short hop to Vermilion OH for one night.   

The next morning, we hopped over to Cleveland where we visited the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame and of course we couldn't pass up the opportunity to visit the casino!  

This morning we headed out for a 21-hour cruise to Buffalo, NY.  We are trying to make it there before the wind picks up on Saturday.  Today the lake is as smooth as glass! 

This will be Roxie's first overnight run and we have laid out the potty grass!  We hope she figures out that it's her new potty spot!  As you can see she is not pleased! Lol!

Cheers Exterior Tour