We're Baaack!

Here we are again aboard Monarch after a two week layoff to take care of Grandchildren and relax in the sunny south. Sean and Kate are delightful and we enjoyed a multitude of fun!!! It was a joy being with them!

One of our highlights, other than being with family, was being with the "Lunch
Bunch" for supper. Thank you, Sandra, for arranging all that!

We flew back into Syracuse on July 1, and went to the nearest motel and collapsed!

The next day Carol Sue picked us up and took us to a Super Wal*Mart for a grocery binge.

That night John spent 45 minutes installing the XM-Radio package he bought in Pensacola, and then an hour and a half getting XM-Radio to activate it. Bummer, but it is working great now and we love it.

Next morning we attacked the dinghy problem. One tube wouldn't hold air and we spent a lot of time looking for a replacement valve, both in Pensacola and Syracuse only to find that the valve wasn't actually defective, but set up for de-flating instead of in-flating. Now it is inflated and so are we!

Last, but maybe most important we have solved the problem with pumping out with a new deck fitting and adapter.

All that accomplished, we left Brewerton at noon, transited our last lock on the Erie Canal and turned right at three rivers, the junction of the Oneida River which we have been travelling since Lake Oneida, and the Oswego River. We are now on the Oswego canal, and are spending the night on the wall at Fulton, NY. We both agree that we like the Oswego Canal better than the Erie.

Since the Oswego Canal IS the Oswego River, we will end with a most appropriate quote from Henry David Thoreau which is about a lake but applies to the river we are experiencing right now!

"A lake is the landscape's most beautiful and expressive feature. It is earth's eye; looking into which the beholder measures the depth of his own nature. The fluviatile trees next to the shore are the slender eyelashes which fring it, and the wooded hills and cliffs around are its overhanging brows."