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):
