Canalside, Buffalo, and Victor, NY- Sunday, July 20, 2025

      It's our 34th wedding anniversary today, and this year is the 200th anniversary of the Erie Canal.  We decided to combine the celebrations of them into an adventuresome week (we hope). 

     We had a pretty bad day on Friday when, among many other annoyances, a plumber caused a flood in our basement.  We spent all day yesterday drying out all of the clothes that had gotten wet in the closet.  All of our packing and an errand or two were put off until this morning, but we weren't in a huge hurry to get anywhere.  We had a lunch at McDonald's, packed a few last minute things in the car and then went... to downtown Buffalo.

    Scott thought that a great way to start our canal week would be to go to the new exhibit down by Canalside.  It's is in the "Longshed" which was originally a storehouse in the canal district, but recently was used as the workshop where a working replica of the canal boat called the Seneca Chief was built.  This packet boat was originally the one that was used when Governor DeWitt Clinton opened the Erie Canal in 1825.  The yellow boat with green and red trim is now sitting downtown, waiting for the re-enactment of the opening of the canal this fall (which Scott would really like to attend).  Scott has seen this vessel before, but enjoyed the chance to get more pictures of it today.  

    Inside the Longshed is an exhibit called "Waterway of Change- Complex Legacies of the Erie Canal."   Abby was greeted with a scavenger hunt that was specifically made for non-readers, and she and her mother looked for the various items and pictures among the exhibits while Scott spent a little time exploring on his own.  This exhibit is a free and emphasizes how the canal brought many different changes to various groups of people.  One of those groups that is usually overlooked in this story is the Haudenosaunee, i.e., the Iroquois who lost nearly all of their homelands from the effects of the canal.  An interesting backdrop for some of the exhibits shows the canal's rise in elevation from the Hudson River to Lake Erie, and the 83 locks it passed through.  Scott liked the short video that was shown and wished he had a copy that he could share with students (because, honestly, as good as the museum was, this wasn't a place he'd bring students).  He liked seeing that Kitty O'Neil had a place in the exhibits, and he liked seeing things like the dominoes that were used in a tavern in the Canal District.

    When we had seen enough at Canalside we headed towards Rochester.  Emma was coming from the opposite direction.  She had spent the weekend with some friends in Troy.  At her suggestion, we got a hotel room in Victor, near where we are getting the boat tomorrow, but we needed to be there before she got there so that she could get in.  We arrived at the hotel just a little after 3:00.  We had to wait a bit for our room to be ready, but once we got into it, we really liked it.  Julie splurged a little and got us a suite, with a living area and a separate bedroom.  We unloaded the car and gave Abby a choice.  We could either go back to Ontario Beach Park where she played on the splash pad and rode the carousel  a few weeks ago, or we could go in the pool here.  She chose the pool here, so she and mom swam until Emma arrived, around 5:00.

    We took Emma up to the room, and she wanted to take a nap.  We left her there while we went out to eat for our anniversary dinner.  We chose a place called The Thirsty Turtle.  It served basic sports bar type food, which tasted good, though maybe it was a little pricey for what it was.  The service was also a little slow, but we were sitting outside, so that might have been a factor.  Julie loved eating in the sun and said it was just what she needed, though Scott and Abby felt that there could have been a little more shade.  Scott and Abby played some corn hole, and Abby snuck away a few times to sit in the shade she found in a corner.    We got a few things at Target before taking Emma's food back for her.  We were all tired for various reasons and welcomed the big comfortable suite.