Waterford, NY

On Sunday, July 30, Jonny made us a delicious breakfast of French toast using the cinnamon raisin bread and Vermont maple syrup from the farm stand in Orwell. What a treat!

We left Fort Edwards at 8:50 bound for Mechanicville. We had to travel through several locks to complete the Champlain Canal.  Upon arriving at our first lock we were chagrined to discover that a huge flotilla of over 100 kayaks and canoes was traveling the canal en masse.  They were about to enter the lock so we were told to hang out until they locked through not only this lock but three subsequent ones as well!  Jonny was kicking himself because he had heard something about this on the radio but had neglected to pay attention to it.  Oh well! We had no agenda so we tied up at the lock wall and took Archie for a walk across the canal to a pretty little hamlet called Fort Miller. It was a beautiful day, sunny with temperatures in the 70’s, so there was no need to complain.

We chilled for a couple of hours until we were notified to proceed into the lock. From there we went through 3-4 more locks with ease.

Just before getting to Mechanicville we had to go under a bridge that was so low that we were required to notify the nearby lockmaster the day before we would be coming so he would have time to lower the water level, which fortunately he did. We only had a few inches between our solar panels and the bridge.  Yikes!

Because Mechanicville wasn’t our favorite town and because we still had plenty of daylight left, we decided to continue on to Waterford. 

We arrived in Waterford by 5:30.  This is an important intersection because it is where the Erie and Champlain Canals meet. We tied up at the comfortable town dock that only charges for electricity - $10 in our case.

We took Archie for a walk along the waterfront which is quite attractive (and clearly has some sort of horse theme going on)!

Later we returned to Zendo and made grilled pork chops, zucchini and potatoes for dinner.  All in all, it was a long day but not a strenuous one given our early hiatus waiting for the flotilla.  We are taking our time heading south on the Hudson. We’ll seek out some towns that we haven’t visited in the past and probably stop at some old favorites.