ROME TO AMSTERDAM,NY

Early morning August 11, after a stormy night we rose to cloudy skies. The weatherman promised us it would clear up so we decided to head out. Our destination today was Little Falls, NY. Well the weatherman didn't disappoint and the skies slowly cleared up. We arrived in the afternoon at the Harborfront marina and tied up. Today was a one day stop. We walked into town and toured the little museum and learned about the Burrell family. They enhanced the development of pasteurization. Little Falls used to be known for the best cheese. We're finding that many farmers today have a different mentality. They are going back to growing organically.

Little Falls is a picturesque little town and we had fun visiting the antique warehouses. Dick and I had a blast looking through all the old wooden tools,spinning wheels and old sewing machines. The day had turned hot and we were looking for an ice cream store, hmmmmmm closed for the season?? Isn't this August?

Well we returned back to the boat and enjoyed a wonderful steak dinner on board and cool glasses of lemonade, YUM!

Wednesday, our day was going to be interesting. We planned to make 2 stops. The first stop took us to Herkimer House which offers boaters a dock just big enough for our yacht to land on for a few hours to tour.

Herkimer House was owned by General Herkimer who made his money before the War of Oriskany. Before the war he was a landlord and fur trader and built a lovely home which we were able to tour. General Herkimer was renowned for holding off the 1000 British and Indians with only 200 of his men. It was known as the bloodiest battle of the Revolutionary War. Herkimer was wounded in the leg and died 10 days after his injuries.

We were touring with two other couples from around the area, and had a lengthy chat about the history of the area. What a lovely time, but time to depart for stop #2.

Stop#2 was Lock #15, some of the locks allow boaters to tie up for the night. This stop enabled us to go to Fort Plain and see the remains of that wooden fort. As we were travelling through the locks one of the tenders gave us directions. The day turned hot but we decided to venture out and find the Fort Plain museum. Well the 1/2 mile turned into about 2 miles and it was blasting hot. We walked up the steep hill only to find the museum closed. We don't have to say we were disappointed, exhausted and very hot! But we did see a Stewarts Ice Cream shop, so yes we stopped and cooled right off. As we were walking back to the boat, we came across our first Amish buggy. The young man was sitting in the seat waiting for his mom to finish shopping.

Returned back to the boat but had to close all windows and doors because the bugs were overwhelming. It was a quiet night though with no boat waves or wind.

The next day we traversed 4 locks and docked in Amsterdam,NY which was a stop for us on the way up. This time the restaurant was open and the dock was full, but we enjoyed a nice treat and met 3 other couples which 1 couple were MTOA members. Walt and Bev live in Kingston, NY and we may see them on the way down. The main subject was whether the docks in Waterford would be full. We all were going there.