To Utica, NY- Monday, August 11, 2025

    We had our big trip of the summer taken from us when we cancelled our cruise on the Erie Canal back in July.   We reluctantly made the expensive choice of leaving the boat behind when we realized that even if we could coax Abby back onto the boat, nobody was going to be sleeping that night.  The trip was a wash.  Scott still had a desire to do something for the Erie Canal's 200th anniversary this year, and since we weren't doing anything else, we'd explore the canal by land instead.  We only had one day of appointments this week-- Julie had her last PT session for her knee toady and her annual check-up early this afternoon.  That gave us the morning to get the car packed and we're off again. 

    The plan, at this point, is to start in Utica and follow the canal west, stopping at whatever looks interesting to us along the way.   We'll pass through any number of canal towns along the way.  Maybe we'll get as far as Syracuse tomorrow, and Rochester the next day.  We're playing it by ear though. 

    Abby was excited by the fact that we still had things in the "Bag of Fun-ness" that we had prepared for the first canal trip.   The first thing that she got from it was some Minecraft figures including a panda and a Villager.  Unfortunately, the Villager lost his map somewhere in the car after just a few minutes of playing.  We looked hard between the seats and took apart as much of the car as we could, but we weren't able to locate it.  We're still hoping it shows up. 

    We stopped at the Old Erie Canal Historic Park at Port Byron on our way to Utica, and Scott grabbed some maps, including one on the Empire State Trail, which includes details on the Erie Canalway Trail, which we intend to follow instead of Route 90 on our way back.   Abby was just about ready to nod off for a much needed nap, so Scott didn't look around.  That was disappointing because we remembered it as a nice enough stop from when we stopped there after "Transfer Day" back in 2019.  

     When we decided to stop in Utica, we were hoping to be able to go to the Saranac and Utica Club brewery for dinner, but it isn't open on Mondays.  We ended up ordering pizza to be delivered to the room.  Instead of half-pepperoni, it came as cheese only, and the pizza itself was only fair, but we were hungry and ate it all.

    Just when we were getting off of the Thruway and trying to find the hotel, Emma called us.  The thermostat battery had died and the house was heating up.  (The temperature had been in the mid/high 90s all day.)  We talked her through how to change the battery while we were trying to listen to the phone's GPS directions and spot the hotel.  Because of all that, we hadn't noticed that we were so close to the canal itself.  When Julie and Abby went to the hotel pool, Scott took a walk.  At the end of the hotel's driveway, he turned right and found the Mohawk River right there and just beyond that is the Barge Canal.  He took some pictures the sun going down and went back to the hotel to do the rest of his daily walk on the treadmills.