PhotoEscapist

Photo Trip!

How far would I go to avoid cleaning the house, or finishing yard work? About 164 miles round trip, the distance from Syracuse to Little Falls in New York

This is where Lock 17 (Old Erie Canal Lock 36) is located. Why here, 87 miles down the highway? Just because I didn’t want to sweep, rake or clean the dishes? Well yeah, that and Lock 17 has the largest change of altitude of the Locks on the Erie Canal!

According to the Canal Profile this Lock moves boats up and down 40.5 feet to reach the other side of the canal! Who wouldn’t want to see that?

In addition I got to travel my favorite part of the Thruway, the area between Syracuse and Albany. It’s rather scenic, and some day I will setup the D70 to automatically take pics while I drive this corridor, really

Lock 17 and Little Falls are located off of Exit 29a on the NYS Thruway. You take Route 169 to just before the Theodore Wind Bridge. On the left there is an easy to miss (in my case 3 times) road that runs down to the Lock. Theodore Wind Bridge, what a great name for a bridge.

My timing here wasn’t as good as it was at Lock 0-1 in Phoenix, no boats Locked through when I was there. It’s really a shame, the lock from the top looks like some overly long and deep bathtub. Watching boats locking from the upper side to the lower side would look like toy boats in a bathtub with the water running down the drain If the weather gets nice next week, I may just pack a lunch and wait around for the lock to be used just to see it in action there’s also a geocache or two around there too. I didn’t check until after I was on the way home tho

Well, here are some of the pics (you can see all of them on SmugMug or Flickr):

Some of the pictures I enjoy the taking the most, are of gardens and flowers. A majority of pictures I took with the Nikon D70 come from English Garden surrounding my parent’s house. Over the last 5 or so years the front lawn has been slowly converted to spectacular beds of Tulips, Irises, Red Hot Pokers, Cosmos, more Irises, Lillies flocks and, any other plant able to live in Zone 5. From late spring to late fall, the front yard is a symphony or colors, scents and life.

The first picture is of Firecracker Flower (Dichelostemma ida-maia) and what prompted me to write this post Looking at my picture stats for my first Flickr account I saw this was getting several hits a day. Flickr has a neat way of tracking where the hist are coming from, in this case all of the views were from a forum on hkplants.com.

It’s nice to see that my photo was well received enough to be posted, along with 100′s of other links for most of the plants offered for sale on the site, but, it’s a shame they didn’t ask for my permission to use the photo

I’ve replaced the original photo with a watermarked version with the URL for this site

As for the rest of the pictures, enjoy, I’ll be properly tagging them so laypeople (like me) will know what they are looking at

Enough of that…on to the pics:

and found a waterway!

How I got there is a story in itself.

This journey began Monday night with a trip to the Parade of Homes on Chefs’ night. For $10 you get to tromp around 500k – 700k homes (this is Real Estate in Upstate NY, for yer 500 or so Grand you get 3000+ square feet on 1/4-1/2 an acre of land) and sample food from some of the finer restaurants in the area. Not a bad deal at all.

It was here we ran in to the Head Chief of The Gingersnap Ann Pellegrino. She was engaging and very delightful to speak with. My 7 year old niece, Emma, spoke with Ann at length about cooking, and the best techniques for a first grader to make better tomato soup and grilled cheese sandwiches. Ann’s willingness to take time out to speak with my niece, the amazing Baked Pears and this t-shirt

were reasons enough to go on a trip to Phoenix, NY and visit her shop.

The Gingersnap bakery is located on State Street, next to the Oswego River and Lock 0-1. The bakery is rather small, but filled with the wonderful scents of baking pastries, cakes and cookies. The staff was very friendly and assisted us in buying 4 cupcakes, 2 butterfly cookies and 4 fruit filled pastries. The cookies were released from their box, and were quickly consumed by my nieces, who found the cookies to be most excellent. The cupcakes and pastry survived until after dinner. The cupcakes were very good and the fruit pastries were amazing. The sacrifice of these confections was not in vain. We will remember their sugary goodness.

If you are in the area or traveling the Owsego river, I really recommend going here to stock up on some excellent desert foods, also, they cater, so keep them in mind for yor next food filled event!

I know, it seems I’m rambling. But, this seems to be the kind of path my life takes. I Start at point A intending on getting to point B and find points C,D and F along the way. Sometimes I go back and find point E, but, not always. Knowing there is something I missed keeps me going back form time to time to find it

On the Oswego River and Lock 0-1!

The back of the shop faces the canal. If you were to get pushed out the back door hard enough you, would stumble about 6′ and go cup over tea kettle over the fence and in to the water. There are several shops located along the walkway to the lock all with equally fantastic views. There is enough room between the buildings and the water to put a table and a couple of chairs with out getting in the way of foot traffic. I’ll have to go back on a Spring Friday or Saturday evening ts see if there are indeed tables put out by the cafe and restaurant located on the water. Up further is the lock and a drawbridge for the canal.

Not only was coming across the canal fortuitous, my timing was amazing. While taking pictures of the area, The “Black Sheep” and the “Letitia” came up river to travel through the lock. I had never seen a canal lock in use before. I know the theory and have seen models, but, it was great to see it action for real. I have both pictures and video, and regret I only brought one camera. It would have been great to take snaps and done the video at the same time…tho I may have needed to grow a third eye and 2 extra, very long, arms…On to a few of the pics!

You can also find them on my Flickr account or over on SmugMug

There are 9 photos in all. The video I still need to edit it and will post it to YouTube in the next few days.

A trip to get free food and look at huge houses leads to great pastries and some nice canal shots! Amazing how some things work out

There is a lot to see out there. I’m trying to find what I can and, bring it to you Get up, get out and, get going

Ohhh, yeah! I’m looking for an RV (and some donations or picture sales ) If you can help me find one on the cheap, please let me know! escapist@photoescapist.com

Thanks!