{"id":2250,"date":"2017-08-11T07:50:58","date_gmt":"2017-08-11T14:50:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cowlesmountain.com\/Travels\/?p=2250"},"modified":"2017-08-11T07:53:13","modified_gmt":"2017-08-11T14:53:13","slug":"the-thousand-islands-the-saint-lawrence-seaway","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cowlesmountain.com\/Travels\/2017\/08\/11\/the-thousand-islands-the-saint-lawrence-seaway\/","title":{"rendered":"The Thousand Islands & the Saint Lawrence Seaway"},"content":{"rendered":"

We drove another 300+ miles today and arrived at Robert Moses State Park on the St Lawrence River around 4pm EDT.<\/p>\n

Kathy asked me to figure out how many miles we had driven so far on this trip.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 It was 5,245 miles as of Robert Moses State Park campsite, we are here till Sunday, and that doesn’t count the miles we have driven in the car sightseeing.\u00a0\u00a0 And I just calculated we have driven it 7,875 miles since we bought it in January.\u00a0\u00a0 We drove about 1,500 miles on our 4-week shakedown cruise around California back in April.<\/p>\n

We had to drive thru a tunnel that goes under the Eisenhower Lock that was marked at 13’6″. \u00a0Tunnels are always an E-ticket ride in this very wide (8’6″) and tall (12’7″) vehicle.\u00a0 I think the tunnel must have been a bit taller than written up as none of the antennas hit, which when they do hit something, it’s a real attention grabber.\u00a0\u00a0 And it was also a surprise tunnel as the app I use to look for low bridges and tunnels did not show it.\u00a0\u00a0 I sent the developer a message with the coordinates so it could be added ASAP.<\/p>\n

I know that it surprised another camper because when I was unhitching the car last night to back the coach into our spot, a guy walked up and asked me if I had gone thru the tunnel.\u00a0\u00a0 I guess he thought there might be another way in…\u00a0\u00a0 I told him I had, and he asked how tall the coach was. \u00a0I told him it was 11 inches less than it said the tunnel was.\u00a0\u00a0 He mentioned his 5th wheel trailer was 13’6″….\u00a0\u00a0 That would be a dilemma to me..\u00a0 But my guess is that sign means you can fit a 13’6″ vehicle thru it.\u00a0\u00a0 Not sure what he concluded..\u00a0 I haven’t seen him in here again,\u00a0 but it’s a very large campground.\u00a0 This is a beautiful park right on the river.\u00a0\u00a0 On our walks last night some of it looks like a well kept up golf course!<\/p>\n

We drove around the park on Thursday afternoon. \u00a0It’s a big place indeed.\u00a0\u00a0 There is a beach and marina in one area, then we drove out to what appeared to be a curved bridge only to find out it’s a large dam.\u00a0 I remember seeing a lot of power lines off in the distance on the way in yesterday, but they were not around this dam, so it’s not generating power.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Unfortunately there was a gate preventing us from driving on the dam, so we turned around and went east on the road only to find another much larger dam where all the electric lines started…\u00a0 It was also blocked off, so we headed over to the Eisenhower Lock as I could see there was a ship coming down the river on the marine traffic app.<\/p>\n

At the lock visitor center they have two levels of viewing decks above them, both with lots of chain link fence, presumably for security.\u00a0\u00a0 It’s really just to prevent you from taking good pictures.\u00a0\u00a0 It’s incredible that the government thinks that chain link gives them any security.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 100 feet from the viewing deck is a tunnel that goes right under the lock.\u00a0 Need I say more?<\/p>\n

It’s very cool to watch the ship go thru the process.\u00a0\u00a0 But the odd part in the \"\"<\/a>beginning was the ship drove over to one side of the entrance and appeared to be using the braille method to get into the lock.\u00a0\u00a0 The ship was two feet narrower than the lock itself, so it was slow going, almost imperceptible movement till it got further into the lock.\u00a0\u00a0 Then it started moving a bit quicker so you didn’t have to focus on a spot for a while just so you could tell it was moving.<\/p>\n

It literally crept into the lock, taking a lot longer than I imagined it would.\u00a0 I didn’t time it, but I seemed like 30+ minutes to get fully up to the forward lock \"\"<\/a>doors.\u00a0\u00a0 There was a large red gate with a thick cable that looked like it was locked in place on the opposite side to prevent the ship from hitting the lock doors.\u00a0\u00a0 I bet that would be a wild ride if they did as the water on the downstream side is 42′ lower, although it didn’t appear to be that much lower to me.\u00a0 They had to open that gate so the ship can inch forward to the lock doors as they cannot close the rear lock doors till it’s within a couple of feet of those front doors.\u00a0\u00a0 I guess they didn’t expect the ships to get that large back in the ’50s when it was built or they would have put that gate much closer to the lock doors.<\/p>\n

Once they were finally in and the back doors were closed, the lock crew just popped the stopper so the ship would drop to the lower level. \u00a0That took all of five or ten minutes and then front doors opened, some lines were winched back onto the ship, and they were off, just in time for the next ship coming up river to get into the lock.\u00a0\u00a0 You can see it sitting right outside the lock in the pic of this ship heading out.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>\"\"<\/a>\"\"<\/a> \"\"<\/a>\"\"<\/a>\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

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We didn’t stick around to watch the second ship as the part where they inch their way in was akin to watching grass grow.\u00a0\u00a0 We headed out to see the local town of Massena, NY.\u00a0\u00a0 There was a mall not very far from the park, so we headed there first.\u00a0\u00a0 It was a ghost town.\u00a0\u00a0 Huge mall,\u00a0 most of the stores looked boarded up.\u00a0\u00a0 Maybe this was a poor spot to put a mall.\u00a0\u00a0 Seemed like the middle of nowhere to me.\u00a0\u00a0 Then we drove into the little village. \u00a0It appeared to be a sleepy place. \u00a0 Not much going on during a Thursday afternoon.<\/p>\n

On the \"\"<\/a>way back to the campground, I stopped for a pic of that second ship traversing the roadway above the tunnel. \u00a0 It always amazes me when I see big ships above me, like when I was in the garden district of New Orleans and saw a large ship steaming up the Mississippi River many years ago.<\/p>\n

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We drove another 300+ miles today and arrived at Robert Moses State Park on the St Lawrence River around 4pm EDT. Kathy asked me to figure out how many miles we had driven so far on this trip.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 It was 5,245 miles as of Robert Moses State Park campsite, we are here till Sunday, and … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “The Thousand Islands & the Saint Lawrence Seaway”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2250","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-venturing-out-and-about"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cowlesmountain.com\/Travels\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2250","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cowlesmountain.com\/Travels\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cowlesmountain.com\/Travels\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cowlesmountain.com\/Travels\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cowlesmountain.com\/Travels\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2250"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/cowlesmountain.com\/Travels\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2250\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cowlesmountain.com\/Travels\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2250"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cowlesmountain.com\/Travels\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2250"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cowlesmountain.com\/Travels\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2250"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}