3 Jun 15

A gorgeous dawn, but we were still up too late to see the “Pinta” and “Nina” pull out. Bon voyage to them. After breakfast, we went for a stroll around town. Primarily, up the hill (400 ft of elevation change) to the campus of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. A beautiful campus and the oldest technical institution of higher learning in the western world, or at least North America. All this according to our impromptu tour guide - Jeff, COI and Asst VP for Information Services at RPI. He observed us perusing the campus map and offered, first, advice on a scenic walk, and, second, a guided tour with historical anecdotes. More than an hour later, we finally said farewell after an excellent and very insightful discussion of higher education in general and RPI specifically. What a wonderful morning, all the more so as it was completely unplanned. Just goes to show, you need to spend a minute looking at maps: you never know who will come to your aid. If you are ever in Troy, make it a point to visit the RPI campus. The EMPAC concert hall/theatre was phenomenal; worth a trip to see ANY performance. We had a nice light lunch at a (non-Starbucks) coffee house in town and got back to the boat just after noon, whereupon we cast off from Troy Downtown Marina and headed upriver 3.5 miles, through Troy Federal Lock to Waterford, NY, the eastern terminus of the modern Erie Canal. We tied up at the free Waterford Visitors Center, toured the first of the 5 “flights of Waterford” locks (that we will tackle tomorrow), walked around the historic town and got in a bit of grocery shopping. An absolutely gorgeous day with absolutely gorgeous weather.

42-47.270’N, 073-40.807’W