How Cold Is it? Little Falls NY to the Hudson River

Its cold. How cold is it?

• Its so cold wee turned on the heat the last few nights
• Its so cold, there were ice crystals on the swim pads going through the locks.
• It’s so cold, the Glendennie has trouble reeling in the electric cord.
• It’s so cold, the fender dent instead of flex.
• It’s so cold, the dinghy is almost deflated.
• It’s so cold, the isinglass shatters instead of bends.
• It’s so cold, ice cubes last forever.
• Its’ so cold, the fall colors are putting on a beautiful show.

It is cold. We haven’t worn shorts in a while. Jeans, long sleeve t-shirts and layers under fleece are the uniform of the day.

Here is your boat maintenance update: Still having fuel issues from that bad fuel we got at Battery Park before leaving Sandusky. Can you believe it? That was a full month ago and almost 1000 miles. Plus we filled up twice since then. Crazy! That is the equivalent of an entire summer or two of bad boating in Sandusky. It is a royal pain in the neck. Kermit has to change oil filters every 50 miles or so.

We brought another mechanic on board in Atlantic City at Kemmerman’s Marina. Another experienced mechanic who seemed to know what he was doing. In addition to just changing the filters, he took apart the Raycor valve to discover solid chunks of what appears to be plastic bits. SOLID BITS. It ran fine since but Kermit changed the filters again the next day when the vacuum gauge hit 10. Kermit seems to change the filters after every 50 to 75 miles.

Other than that the boat is running ok. The new props are amazing.

• Old props: 2350 rpm yielded 23 mph. Not bad.
• New props: 2200 rpm yields 24.5 mph. Much better mileage. Much better than we ever experienced and ever expected. Thank you Wolverine Propeller!!

Back to the travel.

Little Falls: We stayed in Little Falls NY on the Erie Canal for about a week while I went back to Cleveland for some speaking engagements. Kermit joined me on the drive back to NEO so he could take care of some work on his rental properties (more on that later). Plus we wanted to wait out Hurricane Matthew.
  

We really did not want to be on the Hudson during a hurricane, regardless of where the hurricane put in. The Hudson River is tidal so a storm surge that hits NY and NJ will push water up the river. This has happened with previous hurricanes. Since we did not know exactly where Hurricane Matthew would go, we wanted to avoid any possibility so we hung out on the Erie for longer than we ever anticipated.

We returned home to the boat on the evening on Wednesday 10/12. The weather was still bad so we hung out at Little Falls on Thursday and Friday.

While in Little Falls, we did all our laundry at least twice. The “marina” is actually a wall alongside an old waterway shed that used to service the Canal workboats. Now the dockmaster, Chris, manages a wall that can accommodate about four boats our size along a wall and a few sailboats tied up to a floating dock. They have this placed dressed up so cute with fountains and flowers. Inside the shed has been converted into a big room with roomy couches and chairs and a big table that we took over for computer use.

The wifi signal is strong inside the building but almost non-existent on the boats. That is just fine because the building has everything you could possibly imagine. The showers and bathrooms are absolutely spotless. And they have a brand new washer and dryer that they let you use for $1 per load all up all in. Isn’t that amazing? I can’t say enough about Chris and her team of volunteers. This is a wonderful volunteer job. The volunteers show up at noon and “work” until about 3 or 4 when Chris comes back for the back end of her swing shift. “Work” means sleep, read, watch tv, or talk to boaters. That is about it. I want to sign up!!

We rode our bikes over the river to the grocery store and into the town. I walked to the McDonalds for ice tea most mornings and went to the post office, all the little errands that make up a day. We made dinner, baked bread and in general kept ourselves occupied while the bad weather went through.

We did a little touristing in this beautiful town. Little Falls is famous for its cheese – Herkimer County cheese. In the early 1800s the towns founding fathers took the locally grown cheese and made a market in NY and Europe. That recognition brought the town lots of attention, lots of immigrants, and some really beautiful buildings. Plus, this land was settled by German and Dutch immigrants in the early 17
00s.

The famous guy in town is General Herkimer, a leader in the Revolutionary War. The Herkimer family was one of the original founders of this territory. George Washington visited his home. Unfortunately General Herkimer was fatally shot early in the war and came home to die.

We rode our bikes to his home about 3 miles down the road. We can see the home from the water so we wanted to get up close.

Fancy windows in City Hall

The homes here are just beautiful. You can purchase a beautiful century home right in town for about 200k. The churches are tucked into a block right between houses. Isn’t that funny?

On Sunday October 9 I decided I wanted to go to church. I called up three churches to clarify the times. The first, a Universalist church, had a message.  At the second, a Presbyterian church, an unfriendly lady answered the phone. At the third, an Episcopal church, a friendly fellow answered the phone, talked to me a minute then invited me to come by. I went to the Episcopal church!! At the door, that priest said hello and shook my hand as he welcomed me. I’ve never been to such a friendly church!

Cool place to live along the
Mohawk River! I'd live there!

I picked wisely. This church has the best choir in town. The choir director is also the head of the county arts association. She has a beautiful voice. Her solo made my head jerk back towards the choir loft to find out more about that beautiful noise!

During the service, I started talking to the nice lady seated next to me. Turns out she is a widow who leads hiking adventures in the mountains in upstate NY. Everyone here seems very healthy and interested in the outdoors. The cold does not seem to bother them much!! She was planning to lead her hiking club up a 2000 foot mountain the next day. I guess these things must be planned.

Ice cubes on the swim pads

Finally on Friday October 14 we finally moved on through the locks. The Lock at Little Falls is one of the oldest locks on the Erie Canal System. The current lock replaced four locks of the original 1825 Erie Canal. It celebrated its 100^th anniversary this year but actually there has been a lock at Little Falls since George Washington suggested it during his surveying days. The Mohawk River here lends itself to a lock. It has high walls and runs pretty fast.

Lock 17 at Little Falls is one of two locks with doors that lift instead of having doors that swing open on hydraulics. This is the largest lock on the Erie Canal with a lift of 40.5 feet – that is big!! 

According to www.villageofherkimer.com, this lock was an engineering marvel of its time. It was built out of solid rock right on top of the original Erie Canal. It has a guillotine style lower gate operated by means of a counter pulley with a concrete arch that boats pass under. It is the only lock with this design in the canal system.

We entered on the west side. Little Falls is in the higher elevation so we are starting to go down. When the lock finished emptying, the huge door at the east end lifts overhead. We drove the boat under the drips! It is a pretty cool experience. The I90 highway is immediately beyond the lock so we travel under the highway.

Friday saw us go all the way to Scotia NY. Along the way we got a pretty good look at that Volkswagon Beetle parked on top of a smoke stack in Amsterdam. I don’t think we really saw that before but the fall colors really bring it out. How did they get it there? I wish I knew.

Scotia is just after Lock 8 at Mile Marker 23.4. We could have gone further but remember it is getting dark around 5pm and we were going slow to avoid the hurricane. Scotia is not marked on our Skipper Bob guidebook. The town has two municipal docks with 30 and 50 amp power right off the main river next to a big park. It is an adorable town with about a four block main drag. They even have a brochure for boaters! We walked all the way through town then stopped in a local burger joint because we didn’t feel like cooking. Nice weather for a walk.

Saturday Oct 15 we went all the way through the rest of the Erie Canal, through the final flight of five locks into the Hudson River.

In the Waterford Flight - almost done

We can see the end of the Erie Canal!

Rounding the corner into the Hudson River

We went through the Troy Federal Local all the way to MM36, the Hudson Power Boat Association. We were traveling fast because Kermit wanted to use us fuel so we could replace the bad diesel with better quality.

Next up we will travel down the Hudson and into the Chesapeake Bay!!