July 27th, Friday – Canal Boat Ride Seneca Falls Canal; Cheese Tasting

Wait a minute, not again, rain?  Sure enough more rain throughout the night.  Thankfully by dawn’s early light it had exited the area leaving the sun shining bright.  Yea!

Well, we had things to do, places to go, and packages to pick up so it was up and at it this morning.  No real rush but we had to keep moving.  At breakfast, I got to try my new treat Jalapeno Strawberry Jelly.  If you like things spicy – like I do – you’ll absolutely love this jelly.  On an English Muffin it was great.  I also had a wonderful plate of scrambled eggs, juice and coffee.  I need to keep my strength up, for what I don’t know but it sounds darn good!

Hey, I also got my view of the pond back.  The two RV’s directly next to us left this morning.  Remember the one that got stuck?  Came close to doing the same thing today.  This time I got a good look at what happens with this RV.  It has a tag axle, in essence another set of wheels behind the rear drive wheels.  When and if the tag axle gets up on even a little bit of a rise it ends up lifting the rear of the RV to the point that the drive wheels can’t get any traction.  So they just sit there and spin and spin and spin and the RV goes nowhere.  Poor design if you ask me.  Better idea, and I know from reading, that you can do this with some RVs, you need a way to raise the tag axle for a brief time.

So today we’re going back to Seneca Falls and we want to share with you our boat ride on the present day barge canal that connects Seneca Lake with Seneca Falls.  Our ride today would take us down through Waterloo and Lock 4 and then we would turn around and return back to the dock.

Our boat for the trip was a simple pontoon boat – was hoping for an actual packet boat – that was stable and comfortable.

Our captain for the ride was Captain Bob, here shoving us off and getting the ride started.  Captain Bob is quite the entrepreneur, he provides these daily boat rides for the museum, he also offers evening cruises with supper, and special on the water packages for weddings and other special occasions.

Once out on the water, we motored down to Van Cleef Lake.    Over time the

original Seneca Canal had become antiquated.  A decision was made by NY State to upgrade the canal system of water transportation.  In order to do so, at Seneca Falls, they replaced the five small existing locks with a large two lock combination featuring a 49-foot lift.  These new, larger locks required a great pool of water for their operation.  But where to get the water?  Flood the Flats

The Flats was a low-lying area of Seneca Falls with numerous homes and many businesses.  Flooding the flats, of course, spelled the demise of this early residential and industrial area of Seneca Falls.  Before the flats were flooded, however, a good number of the homes were picked up and moved to higher ground.

The only problem was that many of their owners could not afford to buy a new lot to place them on.  So, they basically just sat in a long row with nowhere to go.  Ultimately many of them ended up being destroyed. As for the businesses in the The Flats, many relocated to higher ground, such as Goulds Pumps, but others left Seneca Falls for good.

Oh, as for the name of the lake, though many made suggestions, Mr. Van Cleef donated $1500 to local government officials and guess what?  The name chosen for the lake was of course Van Cleef Lake!

This is the original road that once led down to The Flats.  Follow it down and it is said

that you will still find foundations and such of homes and businesses that were originally located here in The Flats.

Leaving Van Cleef Lake, we began motoring toward Waterloo and Lock 4.  The next item of interest that we passed was the Seneca Knitting Mills.

This mill was constructed in 1844 and has served as a spinning mill and a mill producing woolen yarns.  During 1862 it made 8,000 pair of socks a day under contract to the U.S. Government for the Union Army. In 1943, the mill saw steady growth and expansion of the hosiery, yarn and cloth business.  In 1974, the mill switched to manufacturing socks which included the famous Red Top Sox known to generations of sportsmen and outdoor enthusiasts.  Finally, faced with stiff competition from overseas imports the mill closed its doors in April of 1999.  The building is now being refurbished and will become the future home of The National Women’s Hall of Fame.

Next we came to what the locals call The Wonderful Life Bridge.

In the movie, It’s A Wonderful Life, George Bailey is deeply troubled. Prayers for his well-being from friends and family reach Heaven. Clarence Odbody, Angel Second Class, is assigned to visit Earth to save George.  Convinced he “worth more dead than alive” because of a life insurance policy George contemplates suicide from a steel trestle bridge. Before he can leap, Clarence jumps in first and pretends to be drowning. After George rescues him, Clarence reveals himself to be George’s guardian angel.  Clarence shows George what the town would have been like without him.  Now, while the producer of the film never acknowledged that Seneca Falls was the real Bedford Falls, the similarities throughout the film are hard to deny.

But wait there was a real-life hero that is actually associated with this bridge.

This is the story.  On April 12, 1917, Antonio Varacalli drowned while successfully rescuing a young woman from the Seneca-Cayuga Branch of the Barge Canal, a young woman who was apparently trying to commit suicide. Antonio, who was a Barge Canal worker, was walking in the vicinity of the bridge when he heard someone scream. He ran to the canal bank and saw a young woman struggling in the water. Without hesitation, he jumped into the canal to save the young woman, although he could not swim. He managed to get the girl to the canal bank before he sank into the water, and drowned.

We continued to motor down the canal and began noticing sculptures like these along the bank of the canal.

What was this?  We learned from Captain Bob that this is the Ludovico Sculpture Trail.

 

The Frank J. Ludovico Sculpture Trail is a trail that parallels the south shore of the Erie Canal in Seneca Falls. It will eventually be part of the Erie Canal Way Trail that reaches across New York State. This trail is special in that it’s a sculpture garden as well as a trail.

Continuing on we came to the town of Waterloo.  Remember what this town is known for?

 

On May 15, 1866 the village of Waterloo held the first formal, village wide, annual observance of a day dedicated to honoring the Civil war dead. On March 7, 1966, the State of New York recognized Waterloo by a proclamation signed by Governor Nelson A. Rockefeller. This was followed by recognition from Congress of the United States when the House of Representatives and the Senate unanimously passed House Concurrent Resolution 587 on May 17th and May 19th, 1966 respectively. This reads in part as follows:  Resolved that the Congress of the United States, in recognition of the patriotic tradition set in motion one hundred years ago in the Village of Waterloo, NY, does hereby officially recognize Waterloo, New York as the birthplace of Memorial Day…

We were now at the terminus of our trip, Lock #4.  We would be going through the lock to the canal upstream and then immediately returning back through the lock and then heading back to Seneca Falls.  The lift at this lock is 14.5 feet.  After this, Seneca Lake.

Here we are approaching the lock.

The water in the lock has been released and we’ve been given the green light to proceed

Here are the lower lock doors beginning to open.

Now it is our turn to enter the lock.

We are now in the lock waiting to rise to the level of the canal outside the upper lock door.  See the waterline on the wall?  That is how much water we have to wait to be brought in to the lock.

When all lights are lit the lock will be full and the upper lock door will begin to open.

In due course the lock filled, the upper door was opened, we motored out then back into the lock and prepared now to be lowered to the level of the lower canal so that we could begin our trip back to Seneca Falls.

Captain Bob informed us that the current day lock keepers face an uncertain future.  Many are pushing to automate the locks and do away with an actual lock keeper.  In Canada, for instance, you can install an app on your phone and control your passage through their canal system with that app.   Only time will tell what will happen.

Soon enough we were back at the dock in Seneca Falls.  It had been a great day on the water.  Captain Bob was the perfect host and a fount of local knowledge regarding the town of Seneca Falls and the Canal itself.  We could not have asked for anyone better for a tour guide.

Our day was not finished though.  We had one more stop to make, Muranda Cheese Company. 

This is the outside view of the barn where cheese tasting is held

This is the inside of the barn itself.

The cheese tasting menu.

Here are the cheeses ready for tasting.

A perfect ending to a perfect day.  Yes, we came away with a couple of different cheeses and this is where I found my new favorite, Jalapeno Strawberry Jelly.  It is delicious!

So that brings our travels to an end for another day.  We absolutely enjoyed our canal cruise and the time spent time tasting one cheese after another.   Even more important we did it together, traveling along, side by side, singing our song.   Thanks for joining us and we hope you enjoyed your time with us.  Till tomorrow when we’ll join you again, I leave you with this thought:

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