Once again, we stopped here because of timing – we left Lyons
late in the day, and so this is as far as we could get before the locks close
at 5:00! And, once again, we are so glad
we stopped here.
We were greeted on the dock by Dick, who we assumed lived here
and greeted boaters like Bob Stopper in Lyons.
He told us we were just in time to attend the town’s Canal Days
Festival, just up the road. In fact, he
said, the parade is happening right now.
So, we hurried up to the main street to see the parade. I expected a small town parade, with a couple
of tractors and a school band. We were
quite impressed with the half dozen or so of bands, including school bands, an
alumni band, and a jazz band! There was
a float on which was recreated the scene from Iwo Jima with the Marines raising
the flag. One float carried about six
lovely young women all dressed in formal gowns with sashes denoting their title
– I didn’t catch what those were. Wonderful!
The festival itself was pretty typical, with food offerings
like fried dough, chicken quesadillas, hot dogs. There were booths with goods for sale
too. We met our favorite dog since we
lost Max. Buddy was 82 pounds of love, a
mastiff/boxer mix. We would have taken
him home in a heartbeat!
One unique feature downtown is a 150 foot flag tower, given to
the town by the Republicans back during the Cleveland-Harrison campaign of
1892.
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| parade band |
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| parade |
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| pretty house downtown |
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| kids picking up candy thrown by folks on a float |
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| downtown storefront |
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| pretty house, with people watching the parade |
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| another pretty house |
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| float |
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| oops - cut off the top of the Iwo Jima reenactment |
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| decorated trash truck! |
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| village hall |
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| downtown storefront |
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| mural near the town harbor |
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| footbridge to the harbor |
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| deck on harbor-side restaurant |
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| 150' flag tower donated by Republican party in 1892 |
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| Kittiwake docked |
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| lovely sunset from our dock |
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| bridge after leaving Palmyra |
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| bridge over the Canal - after Palmyra |
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| downtown scene |
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| dance demonstration |
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| more dance demo |
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| impressive! |
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| pretty church downtown |
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| opposite side of the harbor |
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| lovely |
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| nice house along the Canal |
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| pretty scene along the Canal |
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| nice house along the Canal |
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| nice house, Canal side |
We had a chance to get to know Dick, since, as it turns out,
his boat is parked on the dock behind the Kittiwake. He lives on his boat, on the Canal, every
summer – for the past 10 summers now. He
can just run up and down the canal, never paying for dockage, meeting wonderful
people, enjoying life. He said there are
a half dozen or so people who do the same thing. When the canal closes, this year on October
10, he will store his canal boat and hie to his trawler that he keeps in Punta
Gorda, Florida. Oh, the people we meet!
Views from the canal on the way to Palmyra....
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| mural |
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| mural in Newark - we didn't stop there, maybe next time! |
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| another nice mural |
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Canal boat - these are for rent, and we saw a few on our journey.
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