By Gail & Cowboy
Before we had left the launch ramp in Troy, we heard from Gordie again, the marina guy who wanted us to stay on the line. He asked, “You mentioned your truck and trailer, where are you leaving them again?”
“At the free parking lot by the bakery, past the pizza place,” Cowboy replied.
He left out the bit about the dry cleaners, but Gordie figured it out and continued, “Not a good idea, Sir. You can’t leave your truck and trailer in the parking lot. You will lose all your tires tonight and by next week, there will be nothing left, except a red splotch where your truck and trailer used to sit. That’s the reality.” It’s kinda a gathering place for the local bad guys.
Gail raised her eyebrows remembering the three imps riding away on their bikes and knew he was probably right. “Well, do you know anyone who can drive the truck and trailer to Buffalo?” Cowboy said. The Erie Canal is 338 miles long, so it would be a day’s travel each way.
Gordie said, “I don’t of anybody. Buffalo? That’s a long way.”
Gail interrupted their conversation, “Okay, then, Gordie, could we pay somebody to drive the truck and trailer to Buffalo, so that we would not have to make the 676-mile round trip? There must be a company that would provide this service.” These days, there are businesses for everything, and this was New York, so neither of us really thought this would be a problem.
Gordie said, “What are you talking about?” Gail explained it again, and he returned, “No, but maybe my uncle could. He’s retired and not doing anything, and he might do it for you. He’s sitting right here, I’ll ask him. His name is George and he’s a good driver, although he’s pretty old, about sixty.” Sixty? Whoa. Talk about old. We both smiled while we waited and Gordie came back on the line in a New York minute with the inevitable question, “How much?”
Gail did some brain calculations and mouthed them to Cowboy, who doubled her suggestion, and Uncle George agreed to drive the truck and trailer, leave it at the correct marina, take the train back, and all would be well. We shook virtual, over-the-phone hands, and Cowboy hid a check and key in the truck and gave them the truck code. What could go wrong?
We had passed through the Federal Lock, known as Lock #1, and had gone to an Irish pub for Italian food and Bingo, and before we could finish our cannoli, we got a call from Gordie. “Your truck will be fine tonight, Uncle George will pick it up first thing in the morning, and we’ll call you. Don’t worry.”
Gail was less than happy. An hour ago, he had said it would be tire-less before dawn, and now he says, don’t worry. It’s one of those “you can’t miss it moments.” Since we had already passed Lock Number One, what options did we have? You can’t just flip a U-ie.
The rain stopped and we met a bunch of people who were tied up at the dock for the night. They were from all over, going on all kinds of adventures, to Canada, to the Mississippi, to the Great Lakes. Some were doing the adventure on every boater’s bucket list item: The Great Loop, which is a trip from Albany to Albany, via the Erie Canal, the Illinois River, the Mississippi, across the Gulf from New Orleans to Florida’s Lake Okeechobee to the Atlantic Ocean, north up the east coast along the intercoastal waterway to New York, up the Hudson and back to Albany. It’s an amazing trip, a dream trip, all on water, taking about a year at the average five MPH.
The next morning, we were first in line for the first of the five locks that we did that day. These first locks are called the first flight. Each lock takes about a half hour to pass through, assuming all goes well, and that day the five locks raised us to about 150 vertical feet over the course of a couple miles. The lockmasters were very nice people and a couple asked how we got from Montana to New York, as if it were a foreign country. Each lock asked for our Montana boat registration number and boat length, and some wanted to know how far we were going so they could alert the next lock.
We always moored our boat at about 1600 and went to dinner at a local eatery around 1800. We had just finished dinner (fish and chips for two) and Gordie called again. He and Uncle George had driven our truck and trailer to Buffalo, and all was well. No glitches, they were almost out of gas, but no problem, thank heavens, we could breathe easy.
Military time, 2000, aka 8:00 pm rolled around and this time Uncle George called. All was still well, but the train didn’t leave until 0400 and where would they stay? Could we pay for a hotel for them? The only available hotel was the Marriott, great hotel, but a little pricy, $350 pricy. Oh, yeah, one more thing, they didn’t have a credit card or money. Could we send it Western Union? Now, we were at a dock on a New York ditch and how many Western Union offices do you think there might be? I mentioned Venmo, but that drew a blank with them. They said they would call back. I opened my first bottle of wine.
We didn’t hear from them again that night, but they called the next afternoon, after they had returned home. All was well, they had arrived home safely, following a sleepless, bed-less night in the train depot, but they were inspired never again to be homeless.
We woke up to a beautiful, sunny day, at 0630, not much beauty rest, Cody was snuggling up on our feet, the mattress had been a bit tricky to get down from, for the 0300-bathroom break, but we didn’t sink, float away, and the pirates of Erie did not find us. The Far West got underway, the little diesel engine chugged right along, and Mr. Allnutt and Rosie roles from the movie The African Queen starring Bogart and Hepburn were ably carried out by Miss Gail and Cowboy. If you haven’t seen the movie, you should! Gail kept her eye out for leaches and the Cowboy vehemently rejected her suggestion to call the boat Montana Queen. Men are funny about words, aren’t they?
Stay tuned for more on our Erie Canal trip. The adventure continues!
If you enjoy Gail’s blogs and books, you can find them all on her website Gail Cushman.com Electronic copies of her books are available on Amazon.
