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Wednesday morning. The Canal Crooners were regular performers at the breakfast
briefings. Here they perform after the thunderstorm on the start
of day four. That's Nancy, Patty, Carol, Marian, and Dave.
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Ed (lead) and Vearl (second) and ? coming up a hill about 15
miles from Seneca Falls. In this part of the state, the barge
canal does not follow the route of the original canal so we were
on roads in the Finger Lakes region. There were quite a lot of
hills on the previous day (3) and the start of this day (4).
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Sign for abandoned lock 51 on the widened canal on the
route of the original canal.
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View of the lock from the top.
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View from the bottom.
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View from the east end. It's actually a double lock so boats could
go through in both directions simultaneously.
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In the next town (Weedsport???) the abandoned canal has been made
into a park.
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Eventually we got back on a trail and there's water in the canal
although there are no boats. The lead rider is Ray from Penn Yan,
NY. Last year he cycled from there to Seattle/Vancouver, down the
west coast, across the southern part of the country and up to
Ocean City, NJ where his sister lives. He covered 10,000 miles,
self contained, from May to November, How do I know this? I had
lunch with him the day before.
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Patty on the trail.
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More riders on the trail.
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Sims Store and Museum on the canal path. This was about 32 miles
from the start. It was the afternoon rest stop but it wasn't even
lunch time when this photo was taken.
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Remains of an abandoned aquaduct which carried the canal across a
river. The river is on the left and the canal ran from the lower
left to the upper right.
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The garden of the Erie Canal Museum in downtown Syracuse where
the mayor hosted a reception for the tour and commemorated the
175th anniversary of the canal. We passed by the museum on the
way to the overnight stop. Jay, the luggage truck czar, Jane, and
I drove back to the reception.
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Jane waiting for the reception to start.
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Waiting for the speeches. Names I know: Tom has the helmet on and Richard is
standing and wearing a dark blue shirt.
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More riders waiting. I think the fellow in the middle is actually
asleep!
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This looks down the path of the original Erie canal. The museum
building is on the site of a weigh lock. What is a weigh lock?
Boats had to pay tolls based on the weight of the cargo. So they
had to be weighed. They would go into a weigh lock, the water was
drained, and this left the boat on one end of a great big balance
scale!
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A birthday cake for the canal!
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Speeches. If someone from the Parks and Conservation Association
tells me the names of the speakers, I will be happy to include
them. I believe this is the mayor's representative.
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More speeches. I believe this is a state legislator.
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More speeches. I believe this is an industry representative.
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More speeches. John DiMura from the Canal Corporation.
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More speeches.
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More speeches.
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Rich White-Smith, the executive director of the NYPCA,
receives an award.
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Finally the speeches are over and we can have some cake! That's
Ann nearest the camera. After the reception, Jay, Jane and I
walked over to Armory Square and had a nice dinner in an Italian
restaurant. Then we drove back to tent city. Most of the other
cyclists at the reception had been at the museum waiting for
several hours and then had to cycle to tent city after the
reception was over (or after dinner if they stayed in town for
dinner).
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A rainbow (probably from mist over Lake Ontario) at tent city at
the Manlius Pebble Hill School in Dewitt, just to the east of
Syracuse. That's our tent on the left with my bike shorts hanging
out to dry.
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