We went and visited Donna & Jon in Pittsburg and had a great time. It is easy to get lost in Pittsburg given the fact that the City is laid out based on the mountains and valleys and not a grid. We took some great pictures from an overlook that shows the 3 rivers, Monongahela, Allegheny and Ohio.
When we arrived back at the boat the large yacht Chanticleer (108′ Burger) was tied up. We saw Chanticleer in the North Channel some years ago. It had belonged to Francis Langford/Evinrude who had owned the island at the entrance to the Pool at the eastern end of Baie Finn. They would bring the boat in and power the island from the boat. The current owner bought the boat in 2006 a year after Francis Langford died.
We were delayed in getting back on the water by the refrigerator. The fan motor went out and we were able to get it repaired but in the last 5 months we had the fan motor go out on both the freezer and the refrigerator. The U-Line products are not built with the best of parts.
The delay did, supposedly, get us into some better weather window. The chance of rain yesterday was about 20% and we ran thru 4 different showers. None lasted long.
The western part of the Erie Canal has a lot of towns with free dockage and they have water and power at their docks. We were going to stop at Baldwinsville after 2 locks. Well the wall at Baldwinsville was full and there was no place for us. We went on and did two more locks with the next town being Clyde. There is quite a distance between Baldwinsville and Clyde because we passed thru the Montezuma Wildlife preserve which is very large. Lenore did get to see a lot of heron during the trip and at one time there were 3 in the air flying near the boat. We were disturbing their fishing as we went by.
No boats were at the Clyde docks so we pulled in and tied up. The docks are not large but they are part of a park with a boat launch, pavilion, restrooms and lots of grass for Candy. The only downer with Clyde is that the town is on the opposite side of the canal and you need to cross on the highway bridge to get there. Nice residential setting just across the street from the park. There is also a steady stream of trains going by but there are no crossings so there are no whistles.
We are going to move on tomorrow to either Lyons, Newark or Fairport. All the docks are free or maybe $10 for us.