Summer guests and the weather

Last weekend I had the second batch of company this summer. As are so many of my friends this year, they came to celebrate a 65th birthday! They were also sailors hoping to get a ride on Priscilla, my 30' sloop. As it does from time to time, the weather did not cooperate. In fact, it was really miserable and cold, in the 50's and raining hard. So instead of sailing about in balmy breezes, we ate oysters at Lobsterman's Wharf, drank Cold River vodka - a new Maine vodka made with Maine potatoes, and lobsters cooked right at home.

On Sunday morning, though, we had to buy newspapers at the General Store - along with their delicious muffins and breakfast pizza! So home came the Boston Globe, the New York Times plus the Portland Sunday Telegram - enough newspapers to keep all 5 of us college-educated people entertained for a morning. I went straight for the NYT magazine, and managed to get it first. I was after the Letters to the Editor, and I found what I was looking for.

Two weeks ago, the NYT magazine had published a story on the Erie Canal in their Voyages issue. The story was written by a woman whose friend had made a small, flatbottomed dinghy which the two of them intended to paddle(????) along the Erie Canal. The photo was unforgettably pathetic. So I wrote a letter complaining, explaining that 20 years ago, my 11 year old son and ex-husband, and another family with two boys spent 10 days on two 20' motor boats going down Lake Champlain,

through the Champlain Canal which links the Lake to the Hudson River,

down the Hudson River to Troy, NY,

up the "Mohawk Stairs", locks which take you from the River up to the Erie Canal,

out the Erie Canal which is over 400 miles long (not some dinghy trip!),

through Lake Oneida,

up the Oswego Canal to Lake Ontario,

across that Lake and down through the Thousand Islands of the St. Lawrence River,

through the St. Lawrence Seaway into Montreal,

on down the St. Lawrence to the mouth of the Richelieu River which drains Lake Champlain, and back up the River to home. It was 700 fabulous miles of modest excitement.

The Canals of the early 19th century are still for the most part, viable, especially in Canada, and are great fun to travel on. Who knew that you could circumnavigate the Adirondacks? These remnants of long ago travel deserved more than a pathetic attempt at boating on a 5 mile stretch of the 400 plus miles of the Erie. So I wrote my letter of complaint, and the NYT edited it, and published it, which of course, pleased me immensely. I hope it challenges more travel on the old canals.

Then George and Fred went after the crossword puzzle and finished it on their way home!