Fourth Day on the Erie Canal - Hanging in Canajoharie

This blog will chronicle our (Pat and Patty Anderson's) 

cruising adventures on the Great Loop!

DAY 78 - June 17, 2017

Yesterday we went to the Arkell Library and Museum, did a bit of shopping at Peruzzi's Meat Market (a very cool little store with a lot more than meats), and looked around a bit, but we decided to stay in Canajoharie for another day, and although we kind of struck out in our main objective, we had a fun day anyway!

In the morning a fireman came by our boat and told us the Erie Canal would be shut down between 9:30 a.m. and 12:30 p.m., and if we wanted to leave, we needed to go before 9:30. We told him we were planning to stay, so all was good. Somebody thought it was for lock repairs, I thought he said a boat parade. Turns our it was none of the above!

We walked across the bridge over the Erie Canal to the adjoining village of Palatine Bridge to the Ace Hardware and the Rite Aide for a little shopping. Palatine Village was celebrating its 150th anniversary. The parking lot in front of the Ace Hardware was set up for a classic car show, a stage for live music, mobile food trucks, and good old fashioned chicken BBQ. It turns out the big event, the reason the Erie Canal was shut down, was for a rubber duck race down the Erie Canal! 

Rubber duck race on the Erie Canal!

We took up good viewing spots on the shore. The race was supposed to start at 11:00 a.m. It became 11:15, then 11:30, then noon...and the "race" had still not started. The man next to us told us "The race starts at 11:00 a.m., so if your watch says something different, your watch must be wrong!" We decided to go have our lunch. Our friend Bob Christianson did get a picture of the rubber ducks all bunched up at the finish line. I think they still have some details to work out for this big community event!

After lunch, we went out for our main objective, to find the "boiling pot" for which Canajoharie is named. We also wanted to go back to Peruzzi's to get some more of the sausage patties that we bought yesterday. Skipper Bob had some directions and we tried to follow them, but although we walked a mile or so, somehow we did not go quite far enough, and ended up on a dead end street. It was hot as blazes, and as usual, we had not brought water. Even though we finally realized where we needed to go, we were both too toasted to go any farther! So we went back into town and stopped at a restaurant with soft ice cream and had vanilla and chocolate swirls! Bad decision - we should have gone to Peruzzi's first, because they closed at 3:00 p.m., and by the time we had our ice cream it was 3:30!

Dummy light

West Hill School

We did see some interesting sights in Canajoharie, though. One was the historic West Hill School, where Susan B. Anthony was a teacher in 1846 (the soda jerk told us that he thought Harriet Tubman taught at the school! We straightened him out on his history!). We met a woman at the park who told us about the "dummy light," of which there are only three in the U.S., and that she went to West Hill School in kindergarten and first grade.

We got back to our boat fairly exhausted, but went out for a great dinner with Bob and Peppe to the Mercado Restaurant.  We slept well, but set our alarm for 6:00 a.m. to get an early start for our next destination, Little Falls!