• Todays Trip Day 17
• Start 9:10am
• End 3:50 pm
• Underway 3 hours
• Locks - 4
• Distance 16.7
• Av Speed 5.7

This trip was a little different then most of our trips because we did not know where we were going to stop for the night, and we had a stop we wanted to make in the middle of the trip. We did have a couple of possible places to spend the night in mind.

The first stop was shortly after we left Amsterdam, to go see the museum at Fort Plain NY. There was a free lock wall that we could tie up to, so we could go tot the museum. (We could have stayed the night there, free dockage and electric!)

The Fort Plain Museum began operation in 1961 as the Fort Plain Restoration with an emphasis on rebuilding Revolutionary War Fort Plain also know as Fort Rensselaer. It was an interesting museum and worth the stop.

Leaving the wall at lock 15, we had thought about staying the night at St Johnsville City Docks. They were supposed to have floating docks, cheap fuel, and walking distance to town. When we got there, the floating docks were not there, they had no fuel, and we could not see town. They did have a wall we could have tied up to, but John & Carol (Anna May) would not have been able to get off there boat. (The walls are high concrete walls designed for the barges to tie up to). We decided to push on to Little Falls, Nick and Ginger (Ginger Gale) were already there, and let us know there was room for both of us with electric.

LOCK 17 - WOW is all I can say. This is the biggest lock that we have encoutered so far. The lift in this lock is 40' and when you are in the camber all you can see when you look up is sky. It is also only one of two locks in North Amercia that the lock gate lifts above you, like a guilotine. Pulling into the lock, and holding the lines was not easy. In the lock the water was like a wave pool bouncing you up and down until the gate came down. Once the gate came down and they started filling the lock, it went from a wave pool to a washing machine. The lock takes 18 minutes to fill, and the first 10 minutes were the roughest. We went back to the lock by bike the next day, and watched Chris (Destined Nomand) go thru the lock. When they started filling the lock, it turned his boat sideways.

As much as we like the new bikes we were given we decided to order electric bikes. (Thank You Valerie, for letting us have them delvered to you!) Yesterday we went exploring Litle Falls. The Harbor Master told us it is allways easy to find our way back to the marina from anywhere in Little Falls, go down hill until you hit the water then follw the water upstream to the marina. What he really meant was anywhere you go in Little Falls is uphill. Not easy one a bike. We also want to be able to explore futher then we can on the bikes.

One of the best parts of doing The Loop is the people you meet. Last night we had dinner in the marina office, with fellow loopers. We had planned to go out to dinner together, but all of the restaurants were closed on Mondays and Tuesday's. So instead we had pizza delivered and played cards.

When I mention the people we are with, I will normally put thier names, followed by the boat name in parentheses. Scott & Angel (Nothing To Plunder). If I just put the boat name, it is because I am much better at remembering boat names then people names.

Next Stop Utica.