Salt Shaker @ Marco Island Feb. 2009

Monday, September 6, 2010

Little Falls NY to Brewerton NY Sat 7/3/10 to Tue 7/6/10



We left Little Falls in the morning and did locks 18 thru 22 for a total of 5 more, crossed Lake Oneida and found ourselves in a zoo of boats full of 4th of July revelers in and around the lake.  We tied up at Winter Harbor Marina at Brewerton, just behind our friends aboard the "Just Rosie."  We were treated to a spectacular 4th of July fireworks display on Sunday and on Monday Don and Rosie rented a car and we all went on a side trip to Niagara Falls.

As a note, Winter Harbor Marina is one of those "class acts" in the  set up and operation of a full service facility.




The canal, a short distance from Little Falls heading toward lock 18.





Settled into lock 18 for the ride up.





Looking back after lock 18 successfully negotiated.





Yup! Here is the evidence.  The NY Turnpike authority does indeed own the canal system.





Some maintenance work being done on the canal.





Another guard gate.  See what I mean about the spooky feeling going thru/under one?





The crowd of boats at the town of Syvlan Beach, at the east end of Oneida Lake.  The crowd of boats we had to get thru at the west end of Oneida lake to get to Brewerton was considerable more packed.  It took us only about an hour to cross Lake Oneida.







This is our full time neighbor at our dock at Winter Park Marina @ Brewerton, when they were not out on patrol.  We enjoyed our particular dock as we had the opportunity to talk to the deputies several times.  They were a really nice bunch of young fellows in the Sheriff department.  They always laughed when upon leaving for the night I would volunteer to keep an eye on their boat.







One of our better images of the fireworks display Sunday evening as seen from our dock.







We are on our way to Niagara Falls.  We are crossing the South Grand Island Bridge onto Grand Island.





So many pictures of beautiful Niagara Falls it is really hard to choose.  We liked this one too.





This looks like fun.  Since this was a 4th of July weekend, the park was really packed.  This is the Maid of the Mist taking its next load of ponchos to get wet.




The newly weds at Niagara Falls





One of the Niagara River feeders to the falls.





The roar was considerable.





This is the view of the falls from the Canadian side.  Better for panoramic shots.  We walked across the Rainbow Bridge to get there, passports in hand.





Back on the American side of the falls.  Statue of Nickola Tesla, inventor and mathematician.  Tesla is not as well known as Thomas Edison but here is why maybe he should be.  Edison was not a mathematician so could only invent by intuition and experiment.  Tesla had a full grasp of mathematics and was able to predict the behavior of alternating current electricity.  Edison could only work with direct currents which are much simpler and the principles of DC are more easily grasp by intuitive methods.

Big war of the currents but Tesla, who left Edison and went with Westinghouse Electric, prevailed in the financial world to make the new Niagara Falls electric generating plants so they would produce alternating current electricity instead of direct current, a much better choice.

The irony here is, as there often is, is that Westinghouse Corp. became extinct over the course of what is called "creative destruction" in the business world while, General Electric, which was created by a combination of two companies, one of which was founded by Edison is today, a corporate power house.







This is Pat returning from a successful day of shopping with "the cart."  Ok, Mark and Sylvia, this is how these things are loaded!





The captain got up from his easy chair to take the previous photo.  After that it  was take down the grill, put the chair away and prepare the boat for travel to our next stop.in just a few hours.

 

No comments:

Post a Comment