And we wait

Mike and his cousins Pat & Tony

Well we are still in Geneva on the lake because of weather.  On Sunday Mike's cousins Pat and Tony came for a visit.  We had a wonderful time walking around the strip and then enjoyed a nice dinner at the restaurant at the State Park.

We had hopes of leaving on Monday morning, but the weather had a completely different idea.  The wind had grown to 20 knots with gusts up to 25.  The waves where, well I have never seen them this high.  (See photos) it was like being at the beach.  Mike used all lines to tie the boat down and it still was rocking and rolling at the dock.  For that matter everyone's boat was rocking and rolling.  It rained off and on all day.  We spent the day reading, surfing (the net), cooking, napping and adjusting the lines on the boat as needed.  We went for a walk after dinner and even treated ourselves to an ice cream treat up at the marina.  The day was not totally lost.  The First Mate was able to get out and take some photos of the incredible waves, clouds, etc.

Today we tried to get underway and got about 5 minutes out in to the lake and decided to turn around and come back.  Water was just unsafe at least for our boat.  So once again we are back at the dock here at Geneva on the Lake and we wait.  We have done what we can to stay patient, but the frustration has reared its head once in a while.  But will wait till it is safe and we can make our passage.

Oh Geneva on the Lake!

Riding the waves!!!

We left Presque Isle, (Erie) Pa early Friday morning.  The weather looked promising and we originally had planned to stop at the Yacht club in Ashtabula and hopefully meet up with some friends.  But found out our friends were actually on a cruise with our Yacht club up to Canada.  (Yes we contacted them unannounced) and the folks at the Ashtabula Yacht club didn't call us back until late Friday evening.  (Epic Fail)

So we made the decision to push on to Geneva on the Lake, since this was going to be one of our planned stops anyway and it was only about an hour or so past Ashtabula.  So we left the dock with high hopes of getting to Geneva early evening.  Well we did arrive at the State park around 5:00 p.m. But not after went for what we considered an 8 hour mechanical bull ride.  Reason being is the waves were cresting at least at 3 feet and we were hitting them dead on all day.  As you can see by the picture above it was one heck of a ride.  Luckily enough though this forward and backward motion doesn't make the first mate sick (only the rocking side to side).  The temperature was great and the sun was beautiful, but boy we were glad to get to our destination.

Morning at Geneva State Park

Now about our destination.  Since we couldn't get any of the so called "Yacht Clubs" to return our call Mike called Geneva State Park.  We were delighted to hear they took reservations, the price was more than reasonable and they had plenty of space.  Best news ever since the weather folks had been predicting some storms are a brewing for the weekend.  As we pulled into our dock we were met by a nice young man more than eager to take our lines (thank you Jesus) and help with docking.  He then said that once we were settled he would take us up to the office (in his golf cart) so that we could get signed in and then bring us back.  Wooooooow what kind of amazing service is this!!!  So glad for the lift since the office was a good hike from where our boat was docked. But the facility is immaculate and found out you can call these guys anytime between 8:00 a.m .and 9:00 p.m and they will come to your dock and bring you up to the main building.  This service is only for the transient boaters.  "lovin it" even though we have chosen not to use this wonderful feature, but it's good to know it's there.  Okay now for our day.

We had a lovely leisurely pace this morning.  I had time for enjoying my coffee while the Captain had some good quality time to sleep in.  We enjoyed pancakes for breakfast and then took off on our bikes to the "strip".  If you have never been to Geneva on the Lake you really must go.  (At least once).  It is like stepping back into time about 50 years ago.  This one road is filled with funky shops, all kinds of food establishments, small businesses selling touristy things.  Arcades, Put-Put,  Flea Market, Craft Shows, Antique shops.  You know it they had it, but it seemed like you were back in the 50's early 60's.  In fact Mike remembers coming here as a kid with his family. It was so much fun seeing the place through his eyes as he was when he was little.  The road winds along the lake and on one side it is filled with all these little "cottages" for rent.  Some in good shape, some well livable, but oh so quaint.  (See more below)

The bike/walking path through the park over to the "Strip"

The weekly Flea Market, and yes we didn't purchase a thing, only parked our bikes nearby so we could walk into town.

Found this wonderful old car in a local parking lot

It seems the First Mate can get her flower fix everywhere

An antique store that used to be the old hotel.  And no family I didn't come back with these, just enjoyed them.

A Ferris Wheel that wasn't in quite working order.

We chose to stop and grab a bite to eat at a place that had outside seating and looked fun and funky.  Sorry can't remember the name of the place.  We ordered  2 cheese burgers and decided to share an order of fries.  Thinking sharing some would be a good choice.  Hah!!!!  What they didn't tell us is how freaking big this "single" portion is.  I guess when the description literally said "single" portion we should have known something was up.  What they brought us looked like a 5 pound bag of potatoes made into fries.  IT WAS HUGE!!!!  We both just stared at the tray and started laughing.  I looked at Mike and said "we are never going to be able to finish these".  His response was "I am sure as heck going to try".  Well we made a good dent in them but ultimately he said "uncle" and was done.

We popped into a place called Fascination.  Mike had remembered coming to it when he was a child.  It was a room filled with all these games, that you had to throw these two balls continuously up the ramp and into the holes.  When someone in the room got 5 across they won and you got tickets to be redeemed on "stuff".  We played three games and I must admit it was a lot of fun.  I actually won 3 tickets but gave them to some little kids that were playing on the other side of the room.

Just a fun old place.

After walking through the strip we decided to ride our bikes down the strip.  That was a fun experience.  The cars were not going fast at all and it is only a two lane road, that you also shared with motorcycles, golf carts and these peddle carts .  It was a wonderful day.  Tomorrow we plan to meet up with Mikes cousin Pat and her husband Tony.

Just peddling down the road.

Having a grand ole time.

Lady J with her newest edition a tarp to help shade the sun.  It's working!!!!!

Change of location, change of attitude

Crossing the Bay

It is amazing what a change in location can do for ones attitude.  Thursday morning the rain had finally stopped, the temperatures had dropped and the wind had picked up.  So we made the decision to stay in Presque Isle, PA one more night but move from the Erie Yacht Club over to Wolverine Park.  It was one of the best moves we made.  The folks at Wolverine were attentive, helpful and cheaper.  The location was also more conducive to visiting town.  We docked at Wolverine around 11:30 a.m. and quickly decided to get off the boat and do some site seeing. We had been cooped up on the boat for the past two days and our attitudes had gone south.  Oh before I get to our excursion I must let you know that as we were pulling into the marina and trying to communicate with the young man at the dock as to what slip he wanted us to pull into our radio on the flying bridge died right as the young man was telling us where to go.   The first mate mad a quick scramble down to the other radio below and continued the conversation and we were then back on track.  Always something to humble you.

Erie Museum of Art

So back to getting off the boat.  Our first stop was down to the bay to a local marine store to buy a hand held radio to supplement the one on the bridge. They had exactly what Mike needed and we were on our way.  Downtown Erie, PA is a wonderful town.  We walked about a mile up the hill to town, past a large Hospital complex and also through Gannon University (which we had never hear of).  We actually for the first time on this trip came across a farmers market.  Needless to say we purchased some goodies (corn on the cob, tomatoes and zucchini) for our dinner this evening.  We have had the worst luck trying to get any kind of fruits or vegetables on this trip.  It seems whatever port we get to we have missed the farmers market by a couple of days.  So we were overjoyed to see this one.

Yum!

By this time we were getting a bit hungry and started looking for a place to grab lunch.  Well we came across a hot dog vendor in the town square and thought what the heck.  We ate hot dogs and sausages on a wall at the park and had the best time.  We then spent the next hour or so just walking around.  We came across a street performer entertaining a bunch of children along with some folks that were in the park enjoying their lunch.  We walked through part of the campus on Gannon University and enjoyed all the wonderful scenery.

We returned back to the boat for a rest and to return our new found "goodies".  The rest didn't last long as Mike wanted to go visit the museum where the flagship Niagara was docked.  We had seen the Niagara at Put N Bay last summer when it was partaking in the anniversary celebration of the battle of Lake Erie.  The museum was a wonderful place and we recommend it to anyone visiting the area.

Fountain in town square

A street performer entertaining some kids in the park.

Frogs seem to be the "thing" in Erie.  Like lighthouses are in Sandusky.

Great old buildings.  We had linner at this Tap house.

The flowers around town were spectacular

This stone road was actually blocked off and had a marker stating this was some
of the original road from when the town was first built.  How cool is that?

Part of Erie Courthouse

After spending most of the afternoon site seeing we soon realized that the hotdogs we had earlier left us a bit hungry by 3:30 so yes we stopped for "linner" you know that meal between lunch and dinner (actually instead of dinner).  We had an enjoyed our meal eating outside watching people and enjoying the beautiful weather.  Erie we will be back some day and be sure to stay at Wolverine Park.

Shucking corn for our upcoming dinner. 

Look another frog at the museum

The USS Niagara

Enjoying the day!

Waiting out the weather

Hanging out in Presque Isle, PA today waiting on the weather to straighten out.  It rained the majority of the day yesterday.  Having a down day once in a while is good.  Caught up on laundry, email, phone calls and yes the first mate baked AGAIN.  This time oatmeal, raisin, honey cookies.  Not to bad, but only made 2 dozen, which are almost gone.  Ooops.

This morning the wind is a howling out of the north at about 10 mph, there is a rip current warning along with a small craft advisory.  Needless to say we are staying put.  Although we have decided to move the boat down to Wolverine marina, which is where we stayed the first time we were here about a month ago.  They were less expensive, much friendlier and the town is within walking distance.  Hopefully the wind will calm down long enough for us to get over there.  Right now it is blowing so hard that the boat is rocking and the guys halyards next to us are banging away.  Our plan is now to get to Ashtabula Friday.  I guess it is the old saying that Mike refers to "Man Plans, God Laughs".    Happy Thursday everyone!

Middleport, Lockport, Amherst, Dunkirk, Erie...where are we and what day is it?

Rainy day in Middleport

I guess I am behind a couple of days on my blogging.  It's hard to believe how many places we have been in the last month.  It's hard to remember what day it is let alone where we are now.  But I will go back a couple of days to our stay in Middleport, NY.  Our stay there was nice and quiet.  It rained for most of the day on Saturday so we hung out catching up on email, baking cookies doing some general cleaning and just relaxing.  We left Sunday morning and worked our way over to Tonawanda in hopes that we would be able to find a space to dock for a day or two.  Hah!!! More about that later.

Mike and Moose checking email and facebook.

Yes cookies where made, yum!

On our way to Tonawanda we went through Lockport.  We traveled through their awesome locks (72 foot rise in two locks).  Next to the current lock was the original 5 locks.  We traveled through these two locks like pros, much different than we did coming through the first time.  While coming through these locks this time we looked up to see about 40 people watching us.  It seemed we were the subject of a tour group.  Oh lord don't let us screw up now.

It was a beautiful site coming through Lockport and seeing the massive bridge with the locks in the distance.

\

The old and the new, what a difference.

What an awesome lock this was, specially when you finally
know what you are doing.

We made it through the locks and were on our way to Tonawanda.  We knew that the Canal Day festival was happening in Tonawanda and thought that by Sunday afternoon mosts folks would be on their way home, well we were WRONG!  what we didn't take in to consideration is that evening their where fireworks and it seemed like everyone that owned a boat was there.  Some rafted out 5 boats wide.  Ugh!  Not our idea of a good time so we made our way back to Amherst and was able to find a private dock that had a couple of transient spaces available.  Spent the night there.  The next morning we left bright and early with hopes to by pass Tonawanda and make our way out to Lake Erie.

The graffiti along the way was intriguing.  It really was art in it's own way.  

The canal was beautiful, the water was like glass.

This was the first time we had seen any deer along the canal.  This was a sweet family of 4.  The babies still had their spots.

Boat houses along the canal.

The weather couldn't have been better and we made remarkable time making our way out through the Black Rock Canal and out to Lake Erie.  We passed massive bridges, which still amazed me that they raise these huge things just for us to pass.  We stopped just outside Buffalo to put our steadying sail back up as we knew we would need this crossing Lake Erie.  We found a nice area took tie up and got to work.  We learned a valuable lesson at this stop.  When working on taking things apart (the stand for the steadying sail) attach screw drivers to the Captain's arm so they aren't lost in the river.  Yes two of those little buggers slipped into the river while dismantling the braces.  Third time we tied the screw driver to his arm.  This worked just fine.

Something humbling about passing under these large structures.

This bridge was raised just for us.

Mike working on dismantling the brace for the steadying sail and feeding the lake a diet of screw drivers.

Problem solved!

We were originally going to stop in Buffalo for the night but decided since the weather was so good we would push on to Dunkirk, NY and spend a night at the great little yacht club there.

More graffiti

Hard to believe in July that it was chilly enough on the lake to wrap up in a towel.

Sunrise at Dunkirk, NY

Our stay in Dunkirk was delightful as always.  Why is it the smaller places that don't have much "cash flow" are always so much more welcoming and helpful (and free) than the ones that charge you out the....well you get the idea.  We left Dunkirk before 8:00 a.m. to another day of perfect weather.  The lake was the calmest either of us had seen it.  Lake Erie being so shallow is for the most part a bit choppy (even on a good day).  But today it was like being on the canal again.  You could actually see the reflections of the clouds on the lake. We experienced a little fog earlier in the morning but even that was just mesmerizing.  

It was hard to make out where the water and sky came together.

The water on the lake was like a mirror.

We arrived six hours later in Erie, PA and decided to spend the next two days here at the Erie Yacht Club.  Which at this point I can't say much for.  The place is beautiful, but poor Mike spent most of the previous day trying to get through to someone to make a reservation.  After about a dozen phone calls he was able to get through but they said someone would call him back.  Which they never did.  We ended up just pulling into the gas dock, talked to some young man that well by the end of the experience I just wanted to smack.  He informed us that the reciprocal agreement that was stated in our book had been cancelled as of a week ago and he would have to charge us the full rate.  Ugh, for a budget boater that is not good news, but we were here and decided to stay.  We were able to fill up on diesel and pump out the holding tank, which by the way they charged us $5.00 to do so.  Again I go back to my earlier statement of why is it the smaller yacht clubs treat you like royalty while the "fancier" ones treat you like yesterdays trash.  Oh well lesson learned and we at least have a dock to wait out the storm which is currently brewing outside my window.  Our next stop will hopefully be Ashtabula where we are hoping to catch up with some friends.