BFFs

My BFF Florence is leveling up her career in a big way and moving to Ireland in a few days! She’ll be gone for a year and a half…

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We hung out yesterday for the first time in a long while (she’s been on the west coast for years) and had a wonderful time. I helped her buy a new wardrobe 🙂

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And then she tried to steal my hat!

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It’s sad to see such a good friend move “across the waves”, but I’m very proud and happy for her because she’s going to excel. Not to mention I’m looking forward to visiting Ireland 😉

Besides, in her own words:

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Omg! Is that a cyber-Florence?!? All will be revealed in a future post…

Time Lapse

These photos were taken on average about a week apart. The first was taken the day after planting, and they are in chronological order.

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They’ll continue to bloom for many months now 🙂

The Fairest Port

Today we continued our cruise westward, heading past the marina where we rented the boat and towards more familiar locales.

The last lock we passed through was lock 30, just east of Macedon. This lock was 16.5 feet deep, and – as with all the locks we used – was gravity operated. Here’s a shot of KLS holding the line to prevent the boat from drifting during the locking procedure.

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All told we went through locks 20 times on this trip! Here’s the last one closing us in:

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To answer Alma’s question on yesterday’s post, the boat is 15 years old but the interior seems newer (you can still smell the wood). The bikes come with the boat. I wanted to ride one today but KLS wouldn’t let me since she thought I’d hurt myself 🙂

Here’s another interior shot from one of the bedrooms looking out the open side hatch while cruising:

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The weather was very wet overnight, but cleared up quickly in the morning and as we cruised into Fairport – Jim’s hometown – we had sunny blue skies.

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That’s a shot from the till.

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That’s a school group we saw on the canal today. They were very friendly!

Fairport is the jewel of the canal, much more popular by far than any other port we’ve seen. It also has a lift bridge that raises upon request for boats. Since the main road happens to run across it, this means that twice today we stopped traffic to pass 🙂

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Here’s some Fairport graffiti I saw under a bridge:

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Here’s some baby ducks that swam up to our docked boat:

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And here we are, right now, spending the night on a comfy boat not 10 minutes from the Friedland house (ours is on the right).

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Tomorrow, in the early morning, we’ll head back eastward to return this vessel and bid adieu to the Erie Canal!

The sea is a harsh mistress, and spending these past few days in her arms has been simultaneously relaxing and exhausting, educational and inspirational, comforting and terrifying. We’ve gone places we never thought we’d go, and seen sights we never thought we’d see. I hope in some small way you enjoyed sharing our trip in this weblog 😉