We left our little camp and headed south to the town of Lockport, NY. Lockport is famous for the series of locks located in the city, on the Erie Canal. The 'Flight of Five', as the locks were known, have been replaced through improvements on the canal over the years. The two locks, today, raise or lower boats 25 feet each, in about 20 minutes.
Lock 35
We also toured the Lockport Cave & Underground Boat Ride. A tunnel constructed to route water from the canal to run a water wheel that in turn turned belts to run manufacturing machinery. The creator of the Hydro Power was Birdsill Holly. He held many patents but the Holly Manufacturing Company's claim to fame was the fire hydrant. Holly sold hydrants to over two thousand cities and his factories covered 3 city blocks. Ironically his entire factory burned to the ground, because he had not installed fire hydrants on or near the grounds. To make matters the fire is reputed to have started in the area of the plant that made the hydrants. The city of Chicago turned down a bid to purchase Holly's hydrants shortly before the great Chicago fire, they order the system shortly after.
Holly was also the inventor of pumps to create pressurized water still in use today. Another creation was steam heat which could travel over great distances throughout a city to heat all the buildings connected to the system.
After Lockport we headed south to our nieces, Gloria in Holland. We burned some burgers on the grill and talked into the night with her & her husband Fred. The next day we went to the farm, their older son Josh is workin' on, to see what is talk of 'Choppin' Hay was. This is a little video I shot of Josh at work.
Tomorrow it's back to cousin Bonnie's for another family reunion and a wedding.
Hope to see ya down the road as we're,
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