Saturday June 18: Rome, NY and the Completion of the Loop!!

We left the Canajoharie dock (with it's wonderful swings!) after breakfast at the little restaurant uptown and headed west again. It was so peaceful and smooth - definitely Daisy's kind of water! Side trip of the day was stopping at one of the locks and visiting the Fort Plain museum. It was small but very well done and had local information about every war - including the revolutionary war. The lady giving the tour told us more than we really wanted to know but most was pretty interesting. Nice person of the day: the gentleman that instead of just giving us directions to the museum - including the 'local shortcuts' - decided he'd just walk us there instead! Said he needed the exercise anyway. Good job John finding a guide!

George Washington slept somewhere in the area - I presume the building that now houses the museum - at least it says so on the first plaque. More plaque information - and finally me waiting for John, Daisy and Steve to catch up since I was riding Steve's bike.

The Erie Canal was closed most of May with all of the flooding that happened due to the unusual amounts of rain here in New York. Most of the debris has been cleaned up but there was a constant watch for logs - both floating and stuck in the bottom - just reaching out for our prop! The canal department cleans the logs up which really makes it a lot nicer :-) Last lock of the day was one of the most unique we've seen. The lower door is pulled straight up and we drove under the door to get into the lock. I think it's one of the few in any canal system.

We ended up staying Thursday night at Little Falls, NY. It was quite the gathering of Looper boats so of course there was the usual gathering at 5 pm for appetizers. There were many couples we hadn't met before and Joysea (Dave and Joyce) finally caught up with us! We ended rafted up together so it was just like old times. It was good to see them again :-) Dinner on the flybridge and then on to what became a nightly dominoes game. Off early with 6 boats ending up traveling together for a while.

A lunch stop at Ilion gave us a chance to visit the Remington Arms Museum which is located right by the factory. Nice little museum - lots of guns of course! Unfortunately they no longer give tours of the factory so we were a little disappointed in that.

Dropped Steve off at Utica so he could walk to the Amtrak station to pick up John and Daisy's car while we continued on to Rome with the boat. He also made a stop to pick up my bike which I had ordered on line the other day. Finally - our arrival at Rome - this time from the East. 9/19/2009 was the last time we were in Rome and we had approached from the West. Completion of the Loop!!!

More tomorrow from Rome, NY - including more of John and Daisy's cruise to Rome :-)