Thursday September 10: Washington DC - a Fast Catch Up!!

The key word for the end of August was - HOT.

Temperatures during the day were in the high 80' with 100% humidity some days.

What are we doing on the Erie Canal on a boat with no air conditioning???

We reached Medina on Sunday Aug 30 - the farthest west that we were going to go. It was time to turn back and head to Pirate's Cove - Guppy's home for the next 8 months.

Like all of the small towns along the canal, Medina was no exception with the electric/water and free mooring.

Medina is mostly known for it's red sandstone. Left is the original armory here in town.

Many local buildings are made of this sandstone as  well as some not so local: Buckingham Palace and the Brooklyn Bridge both used Medina sandstone in their structures.

Churches, homes, business buildings - you name it and it has the red sandstone.

Even the bank of the Erie Canal made use of the sandstone - lining the banks of the canal as a prevention to water erosion from boat wakes.

We even found a good breakfast place with a weird hot dog guy squirting ketchup on his head - definitely strange.


This was really a pretty stop with the most impressive thing being the concrete wall - dam really - built to permit the canal to run over the sizable creek east of town.

It was nice to be able to ride along the top of it - cool waterfall produced by the creek flowing under the canal.

But it was clearly time to head out. The original plan was to put Guppy away on Tuesday Sept 8 and then travel to Washington DC on Sept 9.

Instead we made a push to get back to Pirate's Cove on Friday the 4th stopping at some of the towns we bypassed on the way west: Holley, Spencerport, Palmyra, Newark (again), a long day of 50 miles to Baldwinsville and then a short 14 miles to Pirate's Cove.

A total of 1200 miles traveled between May 28 and September 4. Good summer - ready for a cool time at Matt and Wendy's home in Alexandria, VA!

Guppy cleaned out, winterized and ready to be put away!