27 May 17

This is our first “lay day” of the 2017 expedition and man, does it feel good. We like it here so much that we have rented a car and extended our stay to 4 nights, including last night. After a leisurely breakfast, we picked up the rental car (a Ford Fusion Hybrid; I’m impressed by its performance so far) and then spent a couple of hours at the Ithaca Farmers Market - not quite Granville Market in Vancouver, but not bad. We had a bite of lunch at the Sri Lankan food stand, bought some organic kale/Asian greens, golden turnips and chives. On the way out, we bumped into Stan and Susan from “The Pearl” who are in the same marina, but are staying here for the season to be close to their grandkids. Then, we drove up to Robert Treman State Park and visited the historic mill and did the Gorge Walk to Lucifer Falls and back; it was awesome, including the trail built by the CCC back during the depression. After our exertions, we stopped off at Ithaca Beer Co; a number of good beers, but my favorite was the Creeker - very hoppy double IPA. Back to the boat for dinner aboard; pork chops. After dinner, there was a guy playing guitar on the next dock, so I loaded up my guitar and invited myself to join his jam session. We had fun trading songs until well after 22:00.

28 May 17

It being Sunday, and considering last night’s docktails, we slept in until after 08:00. We finally got on the road about 10:30 and drove up to Taughanock Park to visit the falls, which are the highest east of the Mississippi R. Pretty impressive, with another very narrow gorge carved by the river through layers of shale and sandstone. Parts of the canyon walls look like they were cut out as if in a quarry. After our exertions, we drove to the nearby Americana Winery, sampled a few wines and enjoyed an al fresco lunch. Then we drove across to Seneca Lake, headed south along the east shore to Watkins Glen, where we took another long walk through the Watkins Glen, yet another fantastic, steep-sided canyon with numerous waterfalls and beautiful pools. The path through the canyon, which includes numerous stairs and crosses under the falls at a couple of places is very surreal; the whole path was apparently another project of the CCC during the Great Depression. After our long walk through Watkins Glen, we got back to the boat after 18:00. We had a bit of steak for dinner, then joined the locals for a bit more guitar playing; this time I took the mandolin over to add a bit of color.  

29 May 17

The rains came in the middle of the night, as predicted, and carried on intermittently throughout the morning. After breakfast, we drove to town to the coin-operated laundry and washed 2 weeks worth of clothes, followed by a bit of grocery shopping. Back to the boat for a late lunch and I spent the afternoon commissioning the air-conditioner/heater, cleaning filters, exercising valves and re-caulking the sink, which has, on occasion, leaked a bit of water into the cabinet below. Dinner aboard; salmon.  

30 May 17

It rained again early in the morning and then off and on throughout the day. We turned the car in shortly after 09:00 and were away from the dock by 10:00, after pumping out the holding tanks. The trip north on Cayuga Lake was uneventful until we got to Lock 1 on the C-S Canal, where we were overtaken by a thunderstorm and torrential downpour, which lasted until after we got through Lock 25 on the Erie Canal. We had thought we would stop at the lock wall just above Lock 25, but considering the weather, plus the fact that Lock 25 is in the middle of nowhere, we decided to press onto Lyons, where we tied up to the free town dock (including free electricity; very neighborly) just after 18:00, parked behind “Daddy’s Dream”. Bob Stopper, the town’s harbor host, was there to meet us and give us the history and details of the town. The T-storms have all moved on and it was sunny and warm until dark. Lot of miles but a long day on the water. We walked into town after dinner and took photos of the Lyons fire trucks, the Lyons National Bank, the Lyons Middle School and several Lyons churches, to name a few examples.

43-03.680’N, 076-59.529’W; Log = 54.8 N-m, Sum (2017) = 343.7 N-m