#53 The Hudson River and the Erie Canal

Wow! What a week. We left Lady Liberty and New York City bound upstream on the mighty Hudson River, which was a great cruise. Along the way we stopped at a free city dock in Coxsackie and later the Troy City Marina, both great stops. The Hudson is gorgeous, wide-open, and very little traffic. Perfect cruising. There are castles along the way, most in ruins, left-over monuments to pride and fortune from the great industrialists of the day. There are ruins of massive industrial sites all along the way, as this was a huge infrastructure production area for steel and brick. The Catskill Mountains are spectacular off in the distance, looking a bit like the Smokies. At Troy our Uber driver, Dylan, was a local who gave us a guided tour along with a talk worthy of a tour bus. We discovered that all the railroad rails used in building the trans-continental railroad were produced in steel mills along the Hudson. The story “The Night Before Christmas” was first published in the Troy newspaper; “Uncle Sam”, with his blue cape, was a real person – a man who supplied meat to the troops during the War of 1812 and wore a blue cape; the oldest tech college in the western hemisphere is in Troy, founded in 1820, they invented and built the world’s largest water wheel, then someone got the great idea to put seats on it and the Ferris Wheel was born. The entire Civil War’s supply of horseshoes was produced in Troy, and the South put much effort into stealing horseshoes from the North for their supply. And more, which I can’t remember. It was the most interesting Uber ride we’ve ever had. It’s a bit amazing how friendly everyone had been, and how proud these small town folks are of their town. Both are refreshing to experience.

Upon arriving at Waterford on the Hudson River, we took a left into the Erie Canal. Which, surprisingly, is mostly river, not completely a narrow canal as I had imagined. Once again, I’m having a blast just trying to absorb all the history around me. Before the Oregon Trail and stagecoaches, (1840’s) before the Trans-continental railroad, (1869) before the Lincoln highway crossed the country, (1919), the Erie canal, opened in 1825, was the gateway to the West. Connecting the Hudson to Lake Erie it made the state and city of New York wealthy and facilitated the earliest massive emigration of settlers westward.

One mule can only carry about 250 pounds, yet one mule can pull a barge weighing 60,000 pounds in a water way. Both sides of the Erie canal once had mule paths so that teams of mules could pull barges along the 350 miles of canal. You probably know the old song, covered by everyone from Pete Seeger to The Kingston Trio, the “Erie Canal Song”. The first line is “I’ve got an old mule, and her name is Sal, fifteen years on the Erie Canal.” There really was a mule named Sal, and she really did pull barges for 15 years. I’ll never hear that song again without remembering what it was like to glide down the Erie Canal and see those old mule paths on either side of the canal, now converted to bicycle paths. That’s the kind of history I’m enjoying learning about.

Cheryl commented the other day, as we glided past yet another vast manufacturing and shipping site, that seeing the massive infrastructure of this country in person makes one wonder how we can afford anything. The vast amount of money it takes to operate all this, from the millions of giant container ships, to the monster dump trucks we’ve seen that would hold a city blocks worth of dirt, to the rail system, to the warehouses and factories that take up what seems to be an entire county, all of it needing fuel and employees and resources on an unimaginable scale, and yet we can order a shower curtain from China and get it delivered free. It impressed Cheryl.

Docktails at The Great Kills Harbor Yacht Club with Warbler, Marisa, and Round 4. While we were gone someone got married next to our boat!

I told Cheryl the moonshine on the water was one of the best parts of boating…in fact were you to ask her, she might tell you that I used it as a selling point for this whole boating thing. I finally captured it in a photo.

Hard at work in a lock.

Some shots from the canal, including one leaky lock.

Cheryl: Happy Fourth of July! Whew, it’s been a crazy 10 days! We’ve gone so far and have seen so much. This part of the world is absolutely gorgeous and at times I have to pinch myself to know that I am truly experiencing all of this.

There have been very few boats on the Hudson and the Erie Canal so at times it feels like this is all for us. Cruising by West Point was breathtaking. At the start of our trip I’d wanted to eat at the Culinary Institute of America, but after being delayed a month, we’ve prioritize spending more time in Canada than eating yet another fabulous meal. So for now, pictures must suffice.

As remarkable as the scenery has been, I would be remiss if I ignored the fact that the people of New Jersey and New York are equally remarkable. We all know the stereotype of the loud, boisterous, rude, impatient, self-absorbed New Yorker/New Jerseyan. And to be honest as I’ve traveled to Europe, Mexico, Florida and other vacation destinations, I must admit that stereotype was more than casually accurate. But now that I’ve spent quality time amongst these creatures in their natural habitat, I must say that this stereotype could not be further from the truth. From the young man who helped us figure out the bus schedule and corresponding app, to the guy who left his picnic to drive me to the store for milk, to the snack bar owner who made me an entire blender of blueberry wine slushies and didn’t charge me for them, to the 87 year-old yacht club member who volunteers hours a day organizing slips for traveling Loopers then comes to catch our lines and drive us to the deli, to the New Jersey transit worker who helped get us on the proper bus to Staten Island after the normal bus route had been rerouted, to the Dockmaster who had fresh banana bread waiting for us at the end of a trying travel day, to the Lock Masters who have the doors open and waiting for us when they know we’re arriving, to the waitresses and dock hands, to the Uber driver who told us all about his town and his deceased father who loved everything Looper, and the list goes on and on – all without exception have been warm, hospitable, patient, helpful, kind, and considerate.

I’d like to say it’s all been sunshine and roses, but that simply would not be accurate. Yesterday a huge spider came towards me while I was holding the boat in a lock. Little did Butch know that 6 inches closer would have resulted in MoonShine bobbing freely in the lock. And, watching Butch work on the boat so much (maintenance and repairs) is disheartening. So when he’d put in a full day of cruising six hours, Ubering to West Marine for boat parts (and all the work that goes into figuring out what parts to get), and installing two new bilge pumps in a hot engine room – I was happy to have helped when the vanity mirror slid off the cabinet. I put the mirror on the couch to keep it safe until morning when he could go to the hardware store to get supplies and mount it before we cast off. And I didn’t even break a nail.

Canada, here we come! ~C

Some places have nicer loaner cars than others! First boat we’ve seen from Knoxville. He claims he’s been here three years waiting on repairs after hitting the bottom. ??

And for those whom I may have given the impression that this is all fun, games, docktails and sunsets, this is how I spend way too much time. One of our bilge pumps quit, so I had to put in a new one. I can’t complain though, as it appeared to be a factory pump, which means it lasted 29 years. That’s something.