Catching Up

Anne and Joy gave us these T-shirts and 2 beautiful engraved wine glasses!

Our family surprised us with a special dinner to celebrate our 50th wedding anniversary at St. George Island!

Evelyn at the beach!

Orion at the beach!

June 12 through June 30

     A lot has happened over these weeks!  We returned to Lexington, Ky. to visit family.  Karl's older brother, Hugo, was very ill and in the hospital with a recurrence of cancer.  My sister was recovering from an operation and I wanted to help.  We were able to visit both of them and also spend time with my Mother.  It was great for Karl to spend time with his brother.

     We flew back to Tallahassee for our annual family vacation at St. George Island.  It was a nice break from the boat, we actually got to spend a night at our home in Tallahassee!  It was wonderful to see our children, grandchildren and family!  Karl's brothers and sisters and their families come from Kentucky for a week at the beach.  We have gotten together every year for 41 years! This year, however, Hugo could not come because he was still in the re-hab hospital and we missed him very much. After a fun week at the beach, we returned to New York to resume our boat travels.  Our boat had been professionally cleaned, waxed and polished inside and out! That was a real treat.

      We traveled to Kingston, New York.  The next morning, Karl's brother passed away.  We took the boat to Shady Harbor Marina, close to Albany, New York and left it there to fly back to Lexington for the funeral.  We spent four days in Lexington.  It was a sad time, yet we were so thankful that we had gotten to see and talk to him just a few weeks earlier.

     June 30    Start of the Eastern part of the Erie Canal!
  

         We traveled to Waterford, New York on the Hudson River.  We went through Troy Lock, first lock of the Erie Canal.  After securing to the city dock for the evening, Karl was mentally and physically exhausted and was actually very sick for  several days, with fever, muscle aches and chills.  This is unusual for him, but I think it was a culmination of everything that had happened.  He recovered after about four days of feeling poorly.

      July 1-4   Erie Canal
            We enjoyed traveling eastbound on the Erie Canal.  It has a fascinating history.  It started as the New York Canal System in 1817 and was finished in 1825.  It connects the Hudson River with Lake Erie and the other Great Lakes.  It opened up this part of the country to shipping and the rest of the world.  The first day we went through 9 Locks, lifting us up for a total of 241 feet! I couldn't help myself from humming that song we all learned in grade school, "I've got a mule, and her name is Sal.  Fifteen years on the Erie Canal! From Albany to Buffalo, Fifteen years on the Erie Canal!"

Entering a lock in the Erie Canal

           We stayed the night along the way at several charming towns: Amsterdam, Little Falls and Sylvan Beach and went through 22 locks.  The locks are about 100 years old!  A marvel!  We enjoyed wonderful fire works at Sylvan Beach on July 3rd.  Not sure why they had the display a day early, but we felt lucky to have been there for the celebration.  Along one side of the canal is a running/biking trail, probably was part of the original trails on which the mules would pull the ships along the canal system! We found it a great place to walk and run in the mornings.  Along the other side of the canal is a train track, a very busy track with noisy trains running all through the day and night!

Salty loves going through the locks!  She is wearing her life jacket, that is one  of my gloves to handle the slimey ropes 

            The next day we crossed Oneida Lake, the largest body of water on the Erie Canal.  At mile 160, we met the junction of 3 rivers, the Oneida, Seneca and the Oswego.  We turned into the Oswego Canal and went through another 7 locks, ending up in Oswego, New York.  We ate out that night and tried to regroup, planning to cross Lake Ontario and into Canada the next day!