Macedon, NY and Lock 30 on the Erie Canal- Monday, July 21, 2025

     So here's how the next few days were supposed to go.  We would be in a houseboat on the Erie Canal.  Julie, who has enjoyed piloting pontoon boats in various places, would be sitting in the captain's chair while she guided us through the locks and under the low bridges to various cute little canal towns.  Scott would be sitting in the bow playing canal songs on his mandolin and banjo, but ready to jump off and assist when he was needed on the ropes.  Abby would be sitting with either Mom or Dad, or more likely playing on her own in the cabin, probably on her iPad.  We'd enjoy idyllic scenes along the canal, looking for birds and wildlife and stopping at brew pubs or ice cream parlors at several small towns.  It was a nice idea, but it didn't work out that way.

     We had to be at Erie Canal Adventures in Macedon by 12:30.  They were only about 15 minutes from our hotel, so we took a leisurely pace this morning.  Once we were up and had a good breakfast at the hotel, Abby and Mom went swimming in the pool again.  After that, Scott and Abby hung out in the hotel room while Emma and Mom went to a nearby Walmart to buy some food and supplies for the boat.  There was a Panera right next door to the hotel, so we enjoyed a lunch there and sat at the tables outside.  The weather was perfect, in the low 70s and with a light breeze blowing.  

    We arrived at the boat site with time to spare and we loaded all of our stuff onto the boat.  Ours was the 34-foot long boat called the Oneida. Everything was still going according to plan, and Emma took Abby to a nearby park to play while Scott and Julie went through the training that was needed to rent the boat.  We were told to plan for three hours, though it was closer to four.  We watched five training videos first.  )Actually, we were watching them for a second time today because Scott found them online a few days ago and watched them then,  They made Julie anxious, though.)  Emma called during the video portion of the training to say that Abby was "freaking out," but there wasn't much we could do to help her at that point.

    We went to the hands-on portion of the training.  Julie was designated as our captain and had the helm.  We were showed different features on the boat that we had just heard about, like where to top off the fresh water in the morning and how to hook up the boat to the AC current to charge the batteries when we were docked.  Julie got to feel how the throttle worked-- both forward and reverse, and neutral of course.  She learned how to put the boat into "dead slow forward," and practiced docking several times which was basically learning how to parallel park the boat.  That was a lot harder than she anticipated and she even though the instructor was quite good and patient, she was stressed as he watched her and was not having an easy time of it.  

    We went through Lock 32 with three other boats from the fleet.  Scott called ahead on the radio to the lock keeper, and Julie eased the Oneida in after the chamber had filled and the doors were opened.  At the bow of the boat, Scott grabbed one of the ropes that keep the boat steady against the wall and held to it as the water lowered in the lock.  Meanwhile, Julie did the same thing at the stern.  We exited the lock and circled around with the other three boats to repeat the maneuver back up again.  

    Part of the problem was that there really isn't a captain's chair.  The person at the helm has to stand, or lean, for the entire time, more or less.  The person at the helm steers with a big tiller with a huge handle that points left or right, not a steering wheel that we have used on other boats.  There were several hours of cruise time needed each day for their suggested itineraries, and Julie is still recovering from the knee surgery that she had in May.  She was not going to get any rest for her leg at all while she was driving, and the stress she was feeling already was compounded by the pain in her leg, though she didn't want to admit it out loud.

    Once we had returned to our starting point, we think the people there could see our stress.  They certainly could see Abby's.  The staff re-parked our boat, but we were unsure what we were going to do next.  Abby had been crying most of the time that we were out and was not going to get onto the boat.  We decided to get something to eat and discuss what to do next over dinner at a nearby family diner.  Our plans kept getting revised to smaller and smaller scales.  The staff had suggested that someone might take us to nearby Fairport where we could stay docked for a few days and explore from there.  We already knew from the practice run that we did that Abby was not going to be able to handle the constant hum and vibration of the boat's engine.  They suggested that we spend the night on the boat at the company's docks and decide what to do in the morning.  Either while we were eating or shortly after, we came up with the plan to basically just keep the boat where it was for the next three nights, use it as a floating hotel room, and use the car to explore the area.  But even that plan wouldn't work if Abby wouldn't get on the boat.

    After dinner, Emma left for home and we took Abby back to the boat.  After reassuring her many times that the boat was NOT going to go anywhere, we finally got her to get on board and sit on her mom's lap.  After fifteen minutes or so in the stern of the boat, we got her to pass through the boat to the bow, where there was a nice sitting area.  We put together a new Guess-Who style game and got her to play it, but she jumped at every sound.  A train went by, a jet skier circled past and a few birds called out.  Each time she jumped and started to panic.  Scott wanted to go back up to the main building to see if he could use the restrooms there rather than the small head on the boat, but as he got off, the boat rocked a bit and the deck made noises that drove Abby off the boat for good.  She went back on the land and absolutely refused to try again.  "I love the land!" she kept saying, "And the land loves me!"  There was nothing we could do to coax her back on and she was crying and screaming the whole time.  Her mother correctly pointed out that Abby was not really being bad, but she seemed to really be afraid that the boat was going to sink or that some other disaster was going to befall us and nothing we could say or do could convince her otherwise.  We finally decided that getting her back on board was pointless because she was not going to sleep at all if we stayed there tonight and we weren't going to get any either.

    Julie asked Scott if he wanted to stay the night on his own at the boat.  He could have some beer and play his music the way that he had planned.  Meanwhile Julie would take Abby home where both of them could sleep.  Scott didn't think that this sounded like much fun, so we unloaded all of our stuff from the boat and we all went home, disappointed and much earlier than we expected.