"I had a mule and her name was Sal"

If John sang it once, he sang it a hundred times!

Here we are at Waterford, ready to move into Lock 2, the first lock on the Erie Canal:

This is called a Guard Gate and there were seven of them on the part of the canal we traveled:

We are a couple of weeks behind most loopers so had the locks to ourselves for the most part, until this small fishing boat buzzed past us and took up position dead center on the side of the lock that is easiest for us.  Oh, well.

They are replacing this span of a railroad bridge:

Mary Frances at  Amsterdam.  The restaurant here is so good that we'll make a point to visit it when we drive back out this way.

Pretty and peaceful:

Why?!

This looked familiar to us:

Here's the same site from a picture we took when we were here in 1977:

Just for fun, here's another 1977 pic:

Company in another lock:

These houses are right on the edge of the canal:

Alone at Ilion:

This looked like a snag boat like the one we saw on the Tenn-Tom and they could certainly use one here, as there are lots of trees in the canal.  It is actually a dredge.

This is all we could see of the lighthouse on Frenchman's Island in Lake Oneida:

Brewerton, NY:

We turn toward Oswego:

It's hard to tell from this picture, but it's quite a drop from where we are to the water level below:

Coming out of the last lock, we're in Oswego, NY a block from Lake Ontario: