July 24th, Tuesday – Seneca Falls Visitors Center, Part One; Coming Home to One Stuck RV – No Not Ours!

Rain, even more rain, and more rain after that.  This is really getting old.  And the weather report for the next two weeks calls for a 60% chance of rain or better each day.  What is going on?  I guess we can’t complain since this is really the worse bout of weather we’ve had since leaving Florida.  Rather this, though,  then trying to survive temperatures of over 100 degrees.  I can’t even wrap my head around that high a temperature inside Graybeard.  Sure we have AC but it is for darn certain it is not designed for temperatures like that.

Well, anyway, we decided today that no matter what the weather, we were going to go sightseeing.  So first another delicious breakfast, for me, it was an egg sandwich on an onion role with juice and coffee.  Following that we ran between the rain drops to the car and were off.

Within 30 minutes we were there, the Seneca Falls Visitor Center.  

Oh yes, it was raining,   But the good news was we found parking right across the street.

This was another fascinating museum, well laid out, and it has a number of interesting exhibits with ample documentation.  Let’s begin with the history of Seneca Falls.  It was founded as a private company in 1795 it was originally known as Mynderis Mills and flourished as an Industrial village.  In 1815, it was renamed Seneca Falls and in 1836, after 36 years as a private village, it was publicly incorporated.  In 1841, the railroad cut through the middle of town and by 1848 the town was booming.

By 1840, canals had been pushed as far as economically possible.  Starting in 1841, all eyes were on the railroad.  The longest railroad was completed in 1841 and ran through the center of Seneca Falls.  The line was the only rail route to the Mid-West until 1852.  All the U.S. mail, as did all the immigrants, that were streaming West-Ward went through Seneca Falls.

In 1790, the Genesse road was pushed through Seneca Falls along what today is Fall Street to speed settlement of the western part of the state.  The road was turned over to the Seneca Turnpike Company in 1800.  It was widened to 99 feet.  Traffic westward was immense.

This is a diorama of Seneca Falls in those early days showing the railroad and the streets.

We were also interested in the history of the canal that still is present in Seneca Falls and allowed water passage between Seneca Lake and Cayuga Lake and the original Erie Canal.  

Harnessing the river meant harnessing its water power for new mills, a distillery, sawmills, etc between 1795 to 1809.

It also meant building a canal between Seneca and Cayuga Lake with locks that would lower and raise boats a total of 42 feet.

The Seneca- Cayuga first connected to the Erie Canal in 1826 and was rebuilt at that time to the standards of the Erie Canal.

 

At that time, packet boats carried passengers and were in competition with stagecoaches

Of course, the original canal has undergone several major renovations over the years.  In 1911 plans were underway for a new canal through Seneca Falls known as the Erie Barge Canal. 

The two larger locks that would be built would require a dependable source of stored water.  Engineers created a reservoir known as Van Cleef Lake by flooding the low-lying area of the Village known as the flats.

Before the flats were flooded many homes were moved to higher ground.

This is a picture of the new locks when they were under construction.

Today the canal, using a series of locks, allows boats to pass up the Seneca River (follow the blue line from Lake Cayuga) through Oswego out to Lake Ontario.  

We also learned a bit more of what life was like on a typical packet boat.  First, we discovered this mural of a full size packet boat painted on one wall.

Then there was an explanation and display of a typical packet boat.

This was a display showing the inside of a typical packet boat.

We next discovered a display that portrayed the typical family life on the canal.

We learned a bit about the captain’s family.

Enough for today, we’ll continue tomorrow with more of Seneca Falls.  But before we leave the museum, a bit of humor if you will.  The story of the bridge tender who not once, but twice ambled off to the local watering hole leaving his post with his railroad bridge open.  Yup, you guessed it, the train chug- chugged off the end of the bridge.  Not once, but twice.  What’s even more humorous is that the train and the engineer in both cases were the same!  The story goes though the bridge tender was not fired the first time, the second time he just took off and was never seen from again!

Visit finished, we ambled off in the rain in search of  The Downtown Deli that had a 5 star rating.

Here are just some of the delicious sandwiches that were being offered.

Here is Barbara enjoying her lunch.  Mine was just as great and we both ate every bite.

Lunch finished, we headed for home, with a quick stop, of course, for some ice cream – always room for that.

Arriving home up the hill to our sight and guess what greeted us?  A tow truck.  Seems the RVer two sites down from us sort of overshot his site and ended up in the field beyond.  Once you are back there, there is only one way to get back where he belonged in his site.  A nice 45 foot tag axle RV at that.

 

So our day has now ended.  It is still raining off and on.  Forecast for tonight and tomorrow is more of the same.  It is what it is.  We have packages coming.  We have phone appointments to keep.  So we’ll be staying in.

Thanks, once again, for joining us as we traveled through our day.  We had a great time traveling as always, side by side, singing our song.  Now here is a thought for each of us to ponder:

As always,  if you are coming to the end of your day with concerns and worries, let me suggest that you turn them over to God.  After all, He is going to be up all night so why not let him handle them for you.

Time now for our evening prayers and eventually some shut-eye.  Till tomorrow.

These are the voyages of  Graybeard and it’s occupants, four paws and two humans.  Our continuing mission: to explore as many new states as possible, to seek out new acquaintances and make new friends, to boldly go where we have not been before