Utica NY

We didn't have to leave early this morning, so we slept in and I made french toast for breakfast. Our intended destination today was Ilion NY where the Remington Museum is and we planned to walk there from the dock.  When we pulled in and tied up the dockmaster informed us that the museum went bankrupt about a year ago.  Seriously?? Not one place was this mentioned...  As the dockmaster was telling us this he was standing in front of a huge billboard advertising the museum!  😧

We took Madison for a short walk to Aldi's about 4 blocks away to pick up some essential grocery items and then pushed off to continue west on the canal. One more lock and we tied up at the city dock in Utica NY.  There is an Italian Restaurant here right on the wall and you pay for your overnight stay in the bar.  We have electricity and water and we scored one of 2 spots on the floating dock so Madison can get off the boat easily. We went up to the restaurant for lunch and met the owner (Bev), her husband and granddaughter who was our server. The food was good, the atmosphere great and the people we met were wonderful.

We took a short walk after dinner and saw the downtown skyline and the canal nature paths, but didn't have the energy to go further toward either of them. Also went down the wall to meet the loopers we saw tied up there and exchange boat cards. We spent the afternoon and most of the evening sitting on the cockpit (back porch) of the boat relaxing and reading.  Ahh, retirement!

Side note - when we pulled into our first lock this morning we had to wait for another boat to catch up and enter the lock behind us.  As we were hanging on and being raised in the tub they recognized us and our boat and it turns out these were boaters we met in Solomons Island weeks ago and had gone to dinner with.  That's the funny thing about the Loop - we keep leapfrogging with the different boats and meeting up down the "road".

Tomorrow we have an early morning and hope to make Sylvan Beach on the eastern shore of Oneida Lake.  We hope the weather holds for us to do that - fingers crossed.




Comments

Unknown said…
I am glad you posted this picture! I was looking at where you stopped and it said it was an eating establishment but I couldn’t see what it looked like on the water side. I wondered it there was an outside patio! Yea! How convenient! Glad the food was good!! 🥰 Pam
June 25, 2021 at 9:56 PM
Jennifer Holsen said…
It is so interesting following you on the travel map. Using the satellite mode, you can see all the establishments near you. I’m so jealous of food experiences.
June 25, 2021 at 10:00 PM
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

It Is Finished

Image
 And just like that our boating adventure of the past 2 years is over. We got up early to strip the bed and pack the last few items and made one last trip to the storage unit. We did one last inspection of all the nooks and crannies (with a flashlight) and actually found a small bag of acrylic glassware that had fallen down into a lower shelf unit, so we rescued that.  After loading the car to the gills, we took a couple of last pictures and walked away. I am sad on one hand because I loved our looping adventure on Orion, but by the time we left the boat it didn’t feel like “home” any more. We did something few people ever accomplish and I’m proud of that, and we always said we would know when it was time to move on, and it was. We drove to Baltimore with a stop at the Quantico Marine Museum that Tom has always wanted to see. Wow, what a great place! Reminded me of a Smithsonian. We spent over 2 hours there, ate lunch in their pub and drove the last 2 hours to Baltimore. Nothing beats
Read more

So close...

Image
 Today was one of those days we have been waiting for - warm, sunny, no fog, minimal crab pots and no "incidents".  We left Deltaville around 10 am after waiting till the fog dissipated  and traveled to Hampton VA without a hitch.  We even had our first 2 dolphins ride alongside the boat!  That was awesome!!  As you can see below, it was warm enough to go have a cocktail on the fly bridge and Dewey had his first little field trip outside on the boat too. We are nearly at our intended destination of the Norfolk area where we will have the boat hauled out of the water, the bottom painted and a couple of odds and ends attended to. We are looking forward to meeting our newest grand child, arriving next week and spending the holidays with family.  When we come back to the boat, it will be 2021 and we start the Great Loop adventure in earnest!  Stay tuned...
Read more

So. Many. Bins.

 It was day one of moving off the boat and we loaded so many bins! It’s not just packing, because as with all of our “moves” not everything goes to one destination. We like to keep it complicated! LOL! We have used color coded tape to mark which boxes are boat only, RV if that is what we do next, needs to end up in Hudson, but not this trip, and finally - things that must go with us now to Baltimore and ultimately Hudson. Sigh… We accessed our storage unit early this morning and made 4 trips with a fully loaded vehicle each time. Lots of empty drawers and closets now so we made really good progress today. Tomorrow Tom has a couple of boat tweaks to do while I finish packing and we should be completely done by tomorrow night. We will sleep one last night and pack up the last bedding and towels before leaving on Monday. We haven’t stopped meeting new boater friends - met the guy on the boat behind ours and found out he just bought the boat. He is an older guy alone, sold his house and is
Read more