On Friday, we left Niagara Falls, Ontario. We got up early because the traffic on the Peace Bridge backs up as people who are entering the U.S. are scrutinized. Luckily the agent found nothing amiss with us. Years ago, in the 70’s, we were regularly searched at the border. I think their hope was to find out that John was a draft dodger.
I’ve got a mule her name is Sal…
We drove to Lockport, NY for a trip down the Erie Canal. We got on the boat and motored down the canal to the locks. Originally this was the site of the Flight of Five, an engineering feat. You have to rise almost 50 feet up the escarpment. Now two locks replace the original. The entire operation of raising and lowering the boasts is totally done by gravity and the flow of the water.
We get through the locks and then were on a clear stretch of the canal. At this point the captain put on the Erie Canal music. I am a little disappointed. I know that if had said to us mostly older people that there’s a bridge coming up and what do we sing, we would all have broken into song. I missed doing that. BTW the reason that it is 15 miles on the Erie Canal is because that is how long the mules worked until they were relived by another team. Then the first team got to ride on the barge.
Next we went to the Heschell Carousel Museum in North Tonawanda. This was a workshop where carousel animals were carved dating back to the 1800’s. Wurlitzer did and still does have a large manufacturing capacity in North Tonawanda. They made band organs for the carousels.
There is a self-guiding tour through the workshop and a display of the carousel menagerie. At the end there is a working carousel. John rode the carousel but I was afraid my stonach would revolt.
Later we got to Henrietta, NY for the night. As is our luck, we went out to dinner at Pizzeria Uno which lost our order so we got a free dinner. The waitress kept assuring us that the pizza was on its way. We waited a long, long time for the non-existent pizza. Good thing it was free.