Are we gonna fly to NYC soon?

There is nothing worse than not knowing what is happening, and this is exactly the situation we find ourselves today. The Erie Canal has been closed since last Wednesday, which in our world, is one week we will never get back. Yesterdays notification stated that they were opening the dams and allowing water to fill the Canals again and our expectation was that we would be moving in a day or so. So far there is no further information, so we are having a difficult time planning the balance of our trip. Originally we were scheduled to be back in Trenton by August 25th so Kyle could be back home for his work schedule at McDonald's but as the days tick by, we are not sure we can actually keep that schedule. Our deadline for leaving for NYC is either tomorrow or Thursday at the latest. If the canal is not open by that day we will have to come up with an alternate plan.

But again, being stuck in Little Falls is not a bad thing because we keep finding stuff to keep us busy and it is all enjoyable. It was at breakfast today, that we learned about the hike on Moss Island which is located between the Erie Canal and Little Falls itself, so we decided to go on a hunt to find Potholes.

So, what are Potholes ?

Well, they are unique geological abrasions formed by an ancient waterfall that flowed when the ancestral Mohawk River drained all of the Great Lakes. One formation theory is that potholes like those on Moss Island, were caused by vortices in former streams that rotated and vibrated like "grinding stones"

Moss Island itself, is known for its large 40 - 50 foot deep potholes, as well as being popular with local rock climbers. The cliffs of Moss Island are composed of metasyenite, which is an igneous rock, similar to granite. On our hike in the woods, we were careful to stay on the path to avoid Poison Ivy and to aware of Ticks and we are happy to report, that we stayed away from both.

We took the dingy to a small docking spot on the canal that we used yesterday to get into town. It saved a long walk from our boat. The hike went along canal road on Moss Island, to Lock #17 where we posted pictures and videos of the lock in yesterday's blog.

At the lock we went left, and took the second path and started looking for the Potholes. Also on our hike, we were looking to find Seven Deadman Anchors which were metal and embedded into the rock as a U bend. These were used to anchor lines to the canal area for use when the canal lock was being constructed. Here are images of the hike through the woods and what we found.

We found 5 of the 7 Deadman Anchors which were put there when Lock 17 was constructed

We found the Potholes and spent about 1 hour climbing around the rock to look at all the rock formations that have been here for a very long time.

We packed a lunch and enjoyed it while in the woods hunting for the potholes and anchors

Here are pictures from the Potholes we found

There was always time to take photos on the rocks

When we came out of the woods and started to walk back to our dingy we passed several rock climbers on the walls working on their skills to climb rock walls.

Our day was mostly complete but when returning to the boat, we decided to do a bit more maintenance and clean all the water strainers because we have been travelling through lots of weedy waters and plugged strainers causes your engines to be starved of cooling water. Hence overheating and trouble and we want none of that for the rest of our trip; This was an excellent time to teach Kyle how to clean the strainers and ensure the engines and cooling systems on the boat are in excellent operable condition. He did all the work after a short introduction. Good work Kyle !

That was our day - Tonight it's another Little Falls Netflix Movie Night but lets hope we get some good news soon telling us we can keep going.

Stay Tuned.. we are in dire need of an Adventure.