Road's End

Here I find myself at the end of our 2018 road trip.  Once again, the trip has ended way before I was ready for it to end.  Once again, the lesson learned is that the people of this glorious country are different than what the main stream media wants us to believe:   We are a diverse, caring and loving people ready to help at the drop of a hat.  This is still a great country …. one does NOT have to make it great again…. Just keep it great.

That said I am compelled to make an observation about the differences I observed on the first leg of our trip through Canada.  Our drive through Canada reinforced our previous observations from previous trips that the Canadian farm country is much better kept and reflects a stronger sense of pride of ownership and accomplishment than farmlands in the US.    …. no collapsed barns…. or stacks of rusted hulks of autos…. even the small farms were neat, well kept… freshly painted and mowed.  Also the sense of community and civility in Canada is head and shoulders above the US.

Yet , don’t get me wrong; in the US we aren’t total slobs …… it just seems that we’re ignoring our history…. to keep pushing to technology, business development and the future we are ignoring history and experience.

I think the Erie Canal is a testament to this.  The canal started in the early 1800’s and grew to reinvent itself in the early 1900’s to be more competitive with other forms of transport.  In fact … the reinvention included rerouting the canal …. Destroying the towns no longer on the operating canal….. and creating a boom for the new towns…..   seems so arbitrary ….. and not very constructive or logical for insuring futures.  This, to me, is an excellent example of the US obsession with ‘Big Business’ to the diminishment of its people and environment.  We all know the adage by George Santayana;  ‘Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.’ is clearly illustrated in the booms and busts of the Erie Canal.   

One more observation before I go (and start planning our next epic adventure … probably west)  

While driving through the beautiful country of Northern New York State the love of my life opined that with such open space, many of the densely populated areas of the earth could be ameliorated by moving to the unpopulated mountain sides …. We’ve had this discussion before.  Our travels through North Dakota, Montana, New Mexico and on and on are areas with great expanses of space with ample resources.    It really seems like a no brainer:  the jammed, dirty urban areas whose denizens can’t go out for an evening stroll could be less populated and people from around the world could live in clean and spacious beauty.  For me it’s especially poignant when I see pictures of the crush of population in India and in China with people living on top of each other in tiny box like rooms.  Now I realize that it’s really not that easy to uproot people for lower population density…..and then, there is the fact that our world really is over populated even with the wide expanses of space and we’re running out of arable land for food production and running out of fresh clean water.    It’s a complex issue and I take hope that we manage the vast spaces on our planet to the benefit of mankind.  

I feel so blessed to be able to enjoy our travels and experience what our country, and the world offers.  Our travels are always inspiring and leaves us hungry to get back on the road to see what's next around the bend.

Mark Twain said it well:

“Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime.” 

Now on to planning our next trip and thanks to all who follow us on these blogs.   If you would like a list and address of our travel blogs feel free to contact me at dgallowayd@charter.net and I will provide you with the list

Dennis

Agile Technology

Touring and learning about the Erie Canal was not only informative,  it was inspirational too.   To see how people with vision could not only see beyond the horizon (literally because the design of the canal had to take into account the slope of the land from end to end)  and develop/invent water handling equipment (pumps, fittings) as well as gating designs both lift and swing and aqueducts to carry the barges.  Then there was the diversion of the canal water to power industries

 Many of these designs/inventions were on the fly due to necessity.    

The fact that shipping competition made it imperative to grow the canal system after it had been in operation 70 years.  It was re routed, enlarged and reinvented.   Of course the rerouting of the canal devastated some towns and provided a boon to others. 

  

Of course the canals were not the only fluid, changing thing.  Other forms of transport were inevitably making the canal, as a large freight artery, obsolete.  The canals were the first ‘Super highway’ handling not only freight but passengers looking to move west.    One could also suggest the canal towns/cities experienced the first boom to bust to boom cycles in modern America.  This series of cycles was evident in many of the places we saw.

For me ... I was fascinated by the actual locks... the various conceptions and functions as well as the water handling.....  I end this section with a collection of locks. 

Control panel... note duct tape ..  heh!

Lift gate up

Counter weight up, lift gate down

Lift gate up

Swing Gate

The machinery was nothing to sneeze at from hydraulics to cables and chains... all neat and clean and oiled ...:

Loved it....

More observations to follow....

Busy, Busy, Busy!!!!

In this day of age, it’s hard to imagine just how heavily traveled the Erie Canal was.   When it was fully up and running after the mid 1800’s, it was the main artery of goods (east and west) from the Atlantic to the Great Lakes and visa versa. 

Just imagine, you've been headed west at a top speed of 4 mph, and then you come to a series of locks..... just like rush hour today... .traffic came to a stop.

Most locks were stacked one or two at a time.  But in Lockport, the drop/climb, which was a total change in elevation of 60 feet, needed more locks!   This required a LOT of creativity!  There was a lot of traffic going both east and west and typically one lock took almost an hour of filling and lowering to get a barge through.  In Lockport they developed the ‘Flight of Five’ locks just at the end of 1800's.  Doubled to facilitate east and west traffic at the same time!  The design also was radical for its use of water from the upper lock to the lower lock.   We were told that in it’s heyday, there was a back up of barges/boats that would last up to three weeks to get through the locks! 

Here's a painting of the Flight of Five upon their opening to great celebration:

It may be difficult to see, but look closely and you'll see both 'races' of locks.  60 foot drop! 
and the gates were hand operated (by a teenage boy) made of wood....

Here is how the remaining race of locks look..... enlarge the picuture and you'll see enumeration of each lock.

Here's what it looked like when you arrived at Lockport, headed west....  how would you spend your time in town if you had a couple day layover???