Bikester 4 Camillus to Rome

I spent two nights in Camillus because the forecast saw high winds and rain.  A day in bed did me good, although I felt a bit guilty until the rains came.  In early afternoon, when I took the photo below, I took this color photo from my window, feeling happy to be indoors. 

The next morning, headlamp on, I made for the bike trail.  I was crossing the main rail line when the sun rose.  After several miles of riding, I crossed it again because of an unmarked detour on the trail.  A trail bridge at the SW end of Onondaga Lake was under construction or repair, which led to a long back track.  For a story highlighting the connection Syracuse once had to tide-and-salt water, click here and scroll to the bottom.

I had google maps as well as Gaia GPS, and it cost me a lot of data, but I made it through the labyrinth that was Syracuse.  Highlights were the Niagara Mohawk Building, and  

a short revisit outside the Erie Canal Museum. Significant is the fact that Erie Boulevard, seen to the right on the photo below, is a portion of the 19th century Erie Canal that has been filled in.  Other “Erie Boulevard” locations in NYS are also atop these filled waterways.

Once east of the streets of Syracuse and eastern suburbs, I made it to the 36-mile Old Erie Canal State Park, a welcome relief, and a must-pedal area of the trail.  The trail lies atop the towpath, and long stretches of extant canal have water in them.  I saw folks fishing.

A few years ago in the fall I’d visited Chittenango Landing Canal Boat Museum, where I took these photos of circus life on the canal.  There’s much more to see as well.  For now, I had miles to go . . . so andiamo.

I stopped to see vestiges of 19th century industry, like this clay pot factory, located for easy and safe transport of the fragile cargo.  Now . . .  we choose to use plastic ones . . .

Onward . . . I zoomed through Canastota, my “easy goal” for the day.  Then Icrossed the NYS Thruway and headed for Rome.  The trailside of the Verona town buildings made for a “canvas” for muralists.  The Stark’s Landing reference means that this location a century and a half ago served as a transport and cargo handling center.  

Now this section of the canal was empty and although land was farmed, no indication remained of the previous supply chain modes.

Eventually I crossed the contemporary canal at lock 21, passed the junction lock, and followed the NE bound trail into Rome.  For some good views and the “junction lock” and the NE bound trail, click here and see photos 3 and 4 from last.  

It was another 50-mile day . . .   technically longer given the detour just west of Syracuse city.

Report and photos . . . WVD.

Bikester 1 Tonawanda to Albion

When the trail ended, I wanted to post photos immediately, but during my short hiatus, wordpress changed its interface for the producer, i.e., me.  I’ve finally puzzled through, and especially for readers not on FB, here is a report.  That look below . . .  that was “minute one of day one” and my incredulous face, time to forward pedal or back pedal and lose face . . . . sh*t or get off the can.

The look of . . . “Am I too far in to change my mind?!?”

In that case, en avant, I should fuel and lubricate the tires. Sunday 0735.

This is the look of focus!  I soon stopped and put on my gloves.

13 million . . . at least . .  more rotations of the pedals lie ahead.

This is what three trails look like, with the middle one mine . . .

I encountered three types of surface . . .  the cinders path increased effort for the “hybrid” tires I used.  Just roughly speaking, I’d say roughly 35% of trail now is cinders, another 40% is paved, 20% is “share the road” street and highway, and the rest is grassy.  Work is ongoing, so next year the percentage of paved portions will be higher, and grass and highway lower.  The best thing about towpath and rail trails is that they are straight and level.

This last photo of tug Pittsford I took in Albion NY, where I spent night one, in a motel.  I really needed a hot shower every night.

All photos, WVD, who returns to the sixth boro and focus on its traffic after this report.

A final word . . .  I’m not a regular cyclist.  Prior to this trip, I’d not sat on a cycle seat for over five years.  I am, however, an avid walker.  My bicycle was a Trek Dual DS2 provided by Oswego Expeditions, a very good bike and outfitter.  Thanks, Jennifer. 

Road Fotos 44

The 11% grade, per road signs, leads to a strawberry vendor if you make the left and a ferry dock if you follow all the way down to the Saint Lawrence.  See the two ferries in the distance?  Click here for a view from roughly the same location in March two years ago.

Ferry Joseph Savard approaches for the ride to L’isle aux Coudres, 60 miles closer to the Atlantic than Quebec City, nominally island of hazelnuts, crowding this side of the stream, where the deep water channel for all traffic .  The flats around the island show the result of a 13′ tidal range. The page on this ferry has not been translated, but it was built in 1985, has two Bombardier engines, possibly this one,  propelling a single screw and generating 3894 hp. Capacities are 367 passengers and 55 vehicles.  And it’s free.

 

One, of many, appeal of this ferry is that on the island side it lands immediately next to Ocean Group shipyard.

Vessels outside and on the hard included Fjord Saguenay, a Rio Tinto boat!  Rio Tinto has a large aluminum plant at the head of Saguenay fjord, my destination.

Also in the yard are Ocean Arctique and Ocean Sept-Isles.  The latter is a Collingwood product;  click here and scroll to see what has become of the Collingwood shipyard.

And just north of the blue hulls, it’s Ocean Brochu.  Note the Voith-Schneider drive and skeg under the hull.

Two vessels I’ve published in ProfessionalMariner about were built here, Ocean Traverse Nord and Ocean Taiga. The latter vessel has recently moved to the Arctic on Baffin Island duty.

We’ll return to L’isle aux Coudres, but for now, let’s cross back over to the mainland to catch this traffic and more. It’s the other ferry Radisson, named for the fur trader and explorer.  Savard is named for an early, maybe first, French settler of the island.

Here you see a container ship in the channel located on the narrow strait between the mainland and the island.  Just ahead of the ship, you see the 11% grade hill from the beginning of this post.  And the village atop the hill is a hamlet in Les Eboulements.

 

Here’s a side view of the church prominent in the village;  notice the river above the car to the left?

And let’s end with another snapshot of the church, presbytere des Eboulements.   Here’s the best “eboulements” translation . . . .

Let’s leave it here.  Tomorrow we return to the island.

All photos by Will Van Dorp.

Columbia River Commerce

The blog will resume gallivanting in fifth dimension time travel soon, but for now, another set of contemporary Columbia River fotos.

A train travels the center of Main Street of aptly-named Rainier, Oregon, extending west and

back east.

I’ve never seen this line–BC Rail–out east.   They move slowly enough that anyone could jump aboard, although the trip would be only a mile or so from here because this cargo is nearly at the dock, where

it gets loaded into bulk carriers like this, Ken Mei.  Click here for info on fleetmates of Ken Mei.

Astern of her is a conventional bulker . . . Cleantec, maybe loading wood chips?

Further astern is Ocean Hope, log racks up.

Here Kathryn B passes on the Oregon side of what appears to be a sawing or chipping operation.

All fotos by Will Van Dorp.

Road Fotos 24

I lived near Cape Ann for most of the last 15 years of the 20th century,  and have to get back now and then.

Few places in the US are as connected to the water as Cape Ann, whether it be churches in Gloucester,

 small business icons in Rockport,

or National Endowments for the Arts winners for the oldest profession (really) in Essex.

I was in Gloucester too short this time to meet up with recent friends there, but old friends welcomed me back, like Mount Agamenticus here looming behind the Isles of Shoals and the Boon Island Light, visible but not pictured . . .

as did Thatcher Island.

All fotos this weekend by Will Van Dorp.

Road Fotos 15

I wouldn’t dream of missing Bowsprite‘s lead, so here goes.

My latest gallivant has found me here,

a location I zoomed through last year.

The vessels in this post

reveal this river on the East coast

Whose name most know as  ___ ____r.

So here are the clues:  Margaret McAllister and a warship in the distance.

Kathryne E. and another shot of Margaret McAllister.  The appearance of “arms” is given by dredge Cherokee.

Dredge tug Fleming passing an unidentified wreck, whose identity I of course want to know.

R/V Dan Moore and Cherokee.

Cape Henry escorting in Petrochemical Supplier pushed by Corpus Christi.

Closer -up of Cape Henry.  All these are just SOME of the activity on New Year’s Day on the river called

Cape Fear.    By the way, R/V Dan Moore docks at the CFCC Technology Pier, part of the Cape Fear Community College offerings.

Bonne annee . .  . more soon.

Really Random Tugs 5

In case you worried that Patty Nolan‘s figurefigure would go unrefurbished, check this out . .  and just in time for the holiday.  The 1931 vessel is updated, state-of-the-art, and decent!  More Patty soon.    If you don’t get the “figurefigure” reference, well, this is a “headless” and limbless figurehead.

If you’re really coordinated with screen controls, you can tour 1939 Hudson, the only pre-war sea tug museum in the Netherlands.

Here’s Hudson posing with Elisabeth, Netherlands 2011 tug of the year.  Click here to tour Hudson‘s engine room and see the Burmeister & Wain engine.

Ellen McAllister –that nose packs a terrific punch–rafts up with Nathan E. Stewart –now in the Pacific Northwest?–after the 2009 Hudson River tug race;  the 2011 race will happen in LESS THAN two months.

Barbara McAllister (1969, ex-Bouchard Boys, ex- T. J. Sheridan)  here pushes Bouchard No. 282 out of Port Jefferson.

And back in the sixth boro, here’sOSG Horizon and barge OSG 351 on possibly their first foray in these waters.  Assist tug is Elizabeth McAllister (1967).  Horizon is the twin of

OSG Vision.  Another of the design is planned.  Any guesses on the name?

Credits here go to David Williams, Fred Trooster, moi-meme for Ellen and Nathan, Justin Zizes, and John Watson.

And an announcement, this blog leaves on a gallivant tomorrow and may be silent for the better part of a week.  We hope to surface in Jacksonville, Miami, Key West, and Dry Totugas.    Cheers.

Road Fotos 4

For the record, I’m back in the boros of NYC, but I think I’ll just catch up with the road trip one day at a time.  I also went back and corrected/enhanced the “road fotos” posts I put up with the difficult iPad.  Also, I added new fotos on the Flickr slideshow.

Out front of the Charleston Museum is a replica of the CSS Hunley, the first combat sub to sink a warship.  Actually, it sank two, one of which

was itself.  Notice the lethal tip of its bowsprit from hell.  Click here for more Hunley pix.  Label below was taken at Fort Moultrie.

With only the housetop above the surface fog, Ann Moran (I think) heads past Carnival Fantasy to meet a car carrier taking automobiles OUT of Charleston.  A series on Carnival Fantasy soon.  In the background is the 5-year-old Arthur J. Ravenel Bridge.

Near the mouth of the Cape Fear River, here is the restored 72-year-old Solomon T, a workboat built near Kitty Hawk on the northern Outer Banks.  Much more on Solomon T soon.

I had the great pleasure of a short Cape Fear River tour with Captain Bert Felton, who pointed out that this stretch of Southport NC waterfront was once the location of the sixth boro’s lightship Frying Pan.  More on this later too, but an attempt was made to create a maritime museum here using the lightship Frying Pan that for decades before had marked Frying Pan Shoals some 25 miles outside the River’s mouth.  Use the search window of this blog for more posts I’ve done about Frying Pan, the sixth boro fixture.    More Cape Fear River soon.  By the way, Verrazano, namesake of the Bridge, once visited here.

On a personal note, this trip included a stop at my personal place of the Grail . . .  Galivants Ferry, howsoever you want to spell it.  This place is sacred–or at least inspirational– to the gallivanter in me.

And finally, on another personal note,  a bird show at the southern terminus on the Appalachian Trail instructed me on my insult-of-choice for 2011.  Can you guess it from this foto?  It has nothing to do with the charming bird handler, but it does related to the avian on her left wrist.  The befuddled expression on my face . . . reflects an unpleasant discovery I’d just made.

The bird is a turkey vulture. It’s “domesticated” as a result of a farmer’s finding a large stray egg and –wondering what bird’s it was–he placed it with the clutch his hen was sitting on.  After hatching, the chick was unusually friendly, having imprinted on the farmer.  Well, it was a vulture, who wasn’t interested in eating mash.  Vultures, of course, clean up road kill and any other carrion.  My discovery and term-of-insult?  Vulture breath!  It has to be the rankest smell on the planet.

All fotos by Will Van Dorp except the last one, taken by Elizabeth, the ablest navigator and interestingest conversationalist on the planet.  She’s also talent at the stern of Hunley, above, and in spite of the illusion, she is NOT standing on the sub’s portside stabilizer.

Road Fotos 1

Interstates feel like rivers, all be they hard and inefficient compared with watery ones. Approaching this truck, nothing seemed unusual until

We got alongside. Live fish!

On all those East Coast trucks, I’ve never seen a “dead fish” sign.

Fotos taken near the Virginia/Tennessee border by Will Van Dorp. Anyone know the name of the truck line? I was too absorbed taking the fotos to register the
name.  Here’s a “how-to” publication from Kentucky State University’s Aquaculture Research Center.    I still wish I’d caught the name of the shipper.