Little Falls Town Dock, Little Falls, New York

The canal has a series of  "guard gates", huge steel gates hung from steel towers resting on heavy concrete foundations, used to close certain portions of the canal for repair work or to prevent damage in case of a break in the canal embankment.

The park by the dock here at Little Falls is well done

We were surprised this morning to see fog when we got up; it did lift by about 8, so we took off then. Went up 7 locks today, including Lock 17, which is the highest on this canal and they say one of the highest in the world. However, its 40 ft lift does not compare to Wilson Lock on the Tennessee or the Carillon Lock on the Ottawa, both with lifts of over 90 ft. Mind you, once you are in a lock, the height of the lift or drop really doesn't matter, you just go with it. Lock 17 has a guillotine door, which means it lifts up and the boat enters the lock under it; works well, except there is water dripping off the door, so I had another shower as we entered the lock.  Travelled through rolling hills today, more farmland than we have seen for a while. Actually saw corn fields, and people picking up round bales of hay. Yesterday we saw corn that was growing very well, looked good. Today it seemed as if much of it was fairly newly planted; the lady here at the dock said that this area was badly flooded, they are still cleaning up. Probably also why we are seeing so much debris in the water, whole trees, tree trunks, large pieces of wood, all floating along to catch the unwary. We travelled through one lock with a boat picking up these pieces of wood, looks like he will be busy for a while.

Travelled through several locks today with Fred and his wife in their 24 ft boat "Jumbo". It attracts attention wherever it goes.

We are docked tonight at another great dock and park at Little Falls, the docks provided by the Rotary Club. It is $1./ft to stay here, including power and water, so quite a bargain. The dock is full of looper boats (plus one boat is rafted off another), so we had a looper docktail party here in the park. Lots of chat between those just starting and those of us nearly finished, plus we all enjoy the experience of the gold loopers among us (you fly a gold burgee when you have completed the loop). Dinner on the boat; it will be an early night and several more locks in the morning.