It was a cloudy day with a just an occasional sprinkling of rain. However, when we arrived at the town dock in Fort Edward, it started to pour cats and dogs. Jonny got soaked but he got us securely tied up right next to a ladder. The nearby grounds were very pretty with lots of informative signage describing the town’s history.
Shortly after we tied up, our friends Liz and Steve Kemper arrived as planned. We hadn’t seen them since the last boating season and we are always happy to spend time with them. They are the couple we charted the trawler with last year when we cruised the San Juan Islands in Washington. Once they tied up, we walked into town to have lunch at the local diner.
By then it had stopped raining but on our way back to our boats we got drenched again!
We all spent the rest of the afternoon hunkered down and preparing our contributions to dinner later that night. Around supper time, they came over and brought a new card game they wanted us to learn called Shwoosh. It was a fun game and even Jonny, who is known for not liking games, enjoyed it. We had a late dinner together sharing our bounty of pork loin, kielbasa and homemade cole slaw and potato salad. We even had Ben and Jerry’s ice cream for dessert!
We decided to stay an extra day since we are not in a hurry. On Tuesday mornings I have my Spanish lesson and Liz and Steve took their leave to continue their journey. It was great to catch up with them and to hear about their travels and upcoming plans. We’ll be with them again in July when we share an Air B&B with them at the MTOA Northeast Rendezvous in Greenport, Long Island.
We had a very relaxing day on Tuesday working together on the MTOA website redesign and reading our books. Jonny had already explored Fort Edward a bit with Archie and he wanted to show me some of the most interesting parts. So in the afternoon we walked over to a site where quite a few very old buildings had been assembled to create the village setting of the original town.
The next picture is where Solomon Northrop, the man featured in the book and movie, Twelve Years a Slave, lived for a while in an apartment. He was a free black man living in the north who was kidnapped and brought to the south where he lived as a slave for 12 years before he was able to escape. The movie was excellent and I had read the book which he wrote himself which was even more moving.
Fort Edward was important strategically and historically due to its position commanding the Hudson and Champlain River valleys. It was the site of a fort as early as 1709 and later it was taken by British forces during the Revolutionary War. The village itself was incorporated in 1849. The population of the village is currently around 3,375. It is a pretty place with many attractive and well-maintained homes and very friendly people.
After exploring the area we stopped at the local brew pub for a beer and met the the owners, a couple who were both retired Marines. On the way out we met another retired couple both of whom were engineers who worked on nuclear submarines. I was suitably impressed to meet two women who had successful careers in clearly male-dominated fields - very impressive achievements!
That evening we had a cozy dinner onboard with our favorite chicken Nona and the leftover potato salad and cole slaw. Next stop is Whitehall, the last town on the Champlain Canal.
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