Messing
About in Boats, Boots, and Byways |
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Abandoned
boat near Hamlin Beach State Park on Lake Ontario.
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What
is more sweet, building backyard boats or messing about
in backyard boats?
Both
are sweet, and sweet in different ways. Add to this recipe
for joy the sweetness of donning boots or snowshoes and
extending the season for outdoor activity to the entire
year.
What
could be more sweet than this? This -- writing about all
this activity, and taking pictures to go with the words.
The
logs that follow our fun are:
[ Click
to read log entries, or scroll down for further descriptions
of these log of ours.]
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Sunset
on the Erie Canal in late Summer 2002. Pic taken
between
Medina and Middleport from our canalboat, the Harmonica. |
Erie
Canal Journal charts our play on the canal, in
boats, on our bikes, in boots or snowshoes, or just driving
by to snap some pix to document the changes in the seasons.
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I
met this Little Buddy at the site of the International
Railroad Bridge on the Canadian side in Fort Erie,
across from Buffalo.This Rusty Guy was the inspiration
for the series. |
Industrial
Strength Dockware abounds in Buffalo and in the
surrounding region, which was among the top 10 ports in
the country as recently as 1950.
The volume of shipping is greatly reduced, but the harbors
and their oversized hardware remain, whether it's at the
Inner Harbor in Buffalo or anywhere along the Erie Canal.
The
waterways continue to be set up for the Big Leagues, while
serving pleasure boaters, messers, and other bush leaguers.
This log features pix and captions of the examples of dockware
that we encounter while messing about.
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Poised
in a moment of time, the still-noble Scupper that
started it all.
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Nautical
... Ironical was born in summer 2002 during a visit
to the Darien Lake theme and water park.
After starring a afternoon at displaced pieces of nautical
grandeur such as derilict boats and such, it was the sight
of a still-noble scupper in its own little bit of lawn,
with its own little fence to set it off, like some retired
dockhand, that finaly brought me to my senses:
This stuff, recycled from the glory days of Great Lakes
shipping, is everywhere -- and not just in theme restaurants
that hang nets and floats on the wall like stuffed trophies.
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This
pic was taken on New Year's Day 2002, after 7
feet of Lake Effect snow had
piled up and then started melting. We got all
but 10 inches of our normal seasonal snowfall
from this storm.
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PorchPix:
The Weather Outside Our Window
gives a couch potato-like version of the more active
messing about that we like to do in boats or boots.
I literally take pix while standing on the porch ...
or sitting in the truck. It's surprising how interesting
this can be, until you muse on the western New York
reputation for crippling snows.
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Bridal
Veil Falls from the overlook on Goat Island.
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Winter
Dreams
chronicles our treks in the cold months, covering ground in
snowshoes and boots, rather than in the boats of summer. This
log balances a strong visual component with longer log entries
of text.
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Herkimer
&
Perkins
Welcome
to Our
Corner!
Index:
The Log
Pond
Messing
About in Boats, Boots, and Byways |
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