Today was an easy day . . . but not without a few raindrops that came mid-afternoon. Nothing serious enough to warrant a rain jacket, but rain nonetheless. And right before the B&B, it got a bit heavier, but I resisted adding an additional layer.
Of course the day started out better, but overcast. I no longer have faith in the weather forecast . . . so when I looked outside after waking, it looked like rain was coming at some point. But it was not our first day of overcast skies without rain. And it makes for cool riding.
Our first stop (again, after a bad "free" breakfast) was at Locks 34 and 35 in downtown Lockport, where we descended to the towpath to start our journey for Brockport.
After that visit, it was flat trail riding the whole way. Unpaved cinders. I don't think we'll see asphalt again until Rochester or Syracuse. It was mostly an uneventful day, made more interesting by the large number of lift spans along the way, some of which I happened upon while they were going through an opening and closing.
So here are the pics, heavily annotated to tell the story of today's ride.
Looking down the canal (eastward) from the Cottage Street Bridge. The original five locks are on the left, and the newer two locks are on the right.
They open and close on demand for pleasure craft and the local cruise tours, such as this "paddle" wheel boat. Here you can also see the cinder trail ahead.
Stairs to where? All the lift spans had a pair of these, one on either side of the crossing. You can see here, with the bridge down, the pedestrian gate is closed.
And very (very) occasionally, we would pass a water control structure such as this, which seems to be about lowering the water elevation in the canal when it gets too high. As you can imagine, the canal crosses many creeks, streams, and drainage divides, so there is probably inflow from higher elevation sources.
