The Erie Canal to Kingston

This is a guy living on his little house-boat on the Erie Canal. It's a bit weird(crazy). You can see his little chimney and his table outside.
This is another boat entering Lock 17 before us. The big concrete gate is a bit scary to go under...you wouldn't want it falling on your head. Most of the locks have gates that swing on hinges like a regular door but this one drops down behind you.
This is Steve and I fending off the boat in a lock. The walls are really slimy so we wore gloves. The boat got covered in slime and gunk and Dad wasn't very happy. We went through a lot of locks. I think it was over 20 but I'm not sure.
This is at the farmers market in Oswego. We put up the mast and once everything was done, we went to the farmers market. This is a guy cooking popcorn. We found it amusing that he had to wear a welding mask to protect him from the popping popcorn. They added sugar to the popcorn and it made it taste really different but weird. The popcorn came in huge bags a foot and a half tall and Steve could barely hold it in one arm. It was HUGE!!! Dad didn't like it so Mom, Steve and I got more.
CANADA!!!!! We crossed Lake Ontario (there was absolutely no wind so we had to motor) and Steve and I stood on the bow so that we would be the first ones in Canada. We were also the first ones to step onto land in Canada. We were out of the country for 321 days. 93 of those days were in the Bahamas. We're finally home!!!!

New York City and the Hudson

This is us in New York City in Central Park. We explored the park and sort of got lost. There are a lot of winding paths that are very confusing. Apparently I’m supposed to say that we went on a long and winding road and ended up at Strawberry Fields. It actually took us a long time to find Strawberry Fields ( a section of the park sponsored by Yoko Ono in memory of John Lennon.)

Okay. This is an extremely creepy and strange busker in Central Park. There were actually a lot of strange people and things in New York. There was a guy that had a Chihuahua in a wheelchair. It was a sort of setup thinger that made it look like he was in a wheelbarrow race. There was also someone who was walking their guinea pig on the sidewalk. But this guy was the weirdest of all. He was wearing a loin cloth thing and a weirdo feather on his head and he was singing OOOOOOOOOOOOH!!! in a high pitched voice, playing the violin, ringing a bell and dancing around like a ballerina. It was very, very strange. He sort of freaked me out.

New York is very strange. These are some things you will see in New York:

1. 40 or 50 police cars all parked in one area, the drivers all looking bored or eating snacks.

2. A shop with very strange and very expensive furniture. (e.g. chairs with cows on them, red plastic tables in squiggly shapes)

3. Almost no one who is standing alone and not talking on their cell phone.

4. a freaky busker wearing a loin cloth

5. handicapped Chihuahuas

6. very strange clothes

7. a barefoot singer in Central Park calling himself the barefoot singer (he’s there every Saturday)

8. Lots and lots and lots of yellow taxis (Mom and I got to ride one!!!)

9. If you go on a weekend, everyone seems to be shopping.

10. We saw Donald Trump come in on his helicopter!!

11. A guy riding a unicycle down the sidewalk

This is a pretty picture of a sunrise on the Hudson. I think it was the morning after our first night out of New York.


As you can see, the mast is no longer pointing up. On the morning of my birthday, we took the mast down for the Erie Canal and the Oswego Canal. It went very smoothly (not like last time) and stayed on the deck for the whole time.

Washington to Baltimore

We stayed with Tina and Ed Burke at their beautiful home near Washington. They ferried us around and entertained us after having just returned from a six month sailing trip. We thoroughly enjoyed our time with them and appreciate their kindness and generosity. Thanks guys!

When we got to Baltimore, we heard that there was a baseball game that just started. We could see the stadium from the dock so we hussled over to Camden Yards and watched the Orioles play the Oakland A's. We missed the first 3 innings but it was really fun and the Orioles won. This picture is of the sweeper guys that came at the end of the inning. Their mascot was a big oriole but this guy didn't give me a noogee like the Green Monster did at Fenway in Boston.
On our second day in Baltimore we did the maritime museum and we got to go on a submarine, a coast guard cutter and a lighthouse boat. This is the sub USS Torsk. It was really cool to see but I think don't think I would want to be on one of those guys underwater. It's very narrow and clostraphobic. The bunks for the crew are stacked 3 high and some of the guys have to sleep in the torpedo room above the torpedoes. They each get one teeny locker to put their belongings. The head (washroom) is not much bigger than the one on our boat. There are so many controls and handles and levers in there!!! Dad was getting clostraphobic with the sub there at the surface and he could get out any time he wanted!!! They had the sonar running so that we could hear all the boats whizzing around the harbour and the periscope so we could see them. It was cool. The coasties had a much more comfortable ride. They had much more space and were actually on the surface!!!
On our 3rd day in Baltimore we went to the Aquarium. This is a picture of the dolphin show. This guy jumped 22 feet in the air and touched a ball with his nose!!! He even got it on the first try. It was an incredible show. At the very end, one of the trainers was pushed all the way around the tank by a dolphin and the only thing in the water was her legs. She was sort of leaning forward and the dolphin pushed her all the way around. I decided that I want to be a trainer like that but there are no aquariums near home other than maybe Marine Land.
This is also at the aquarium in Baltimore. The only sharks we saw in the Bahamas were nurse sharks. This guy has much bigger teeth!!! It's a sand tiger shark. Lukily he was in a tank!!! I wouldn't want to swim with this guy. He even has an evil glowing eye!!!( that's actually the flash from the camera)We had lots of fun in Baltimore.

Washington, D.C.

It’s Danielle here. Sorry we’re late in updating the blog but we fell far behind.

As you can see this, is the White House!!! The one and only!!! There’s not really anything I can say except that it looks exactly how I imagined it. On our last day in Washington, (we only stayed for 2 days) we saw 3 helicopters come in to the White House so we are assuming it was George Bush coming home. Unfortunately, we were on the front side of the building and they land the copters on the back side so we didn’t see anyone get out. There was a guy living in a tent outside the White House protesting against nuclear weapons. He has been doing a vigil since 1986.

This is kind of a weird picture to put on the blog, but I think it’s really cool. We went to the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History and this was in the fossils section. It’s a prehistoric fish of some kind, but the cool part is, if you look closely (you can’t really see it on the picture) you can see another fish inside the first one. This guy died right after he ate the fish and its skeleton is inside the other one. It’s really cool. This museum was really big so we each got to pick a section to look at. Of course, I picked rocks and minerals and we saw the Tiffany Diamond and the Hope Diamond. There were tons of minerals. There was also pulverized wood which I found very fascinating. It’s wood that has been under huge amounts of pressure and heat and it turned to rock. I bought a little piece of it at the gift shop. Steve chose the insect section (of course) but it was closed for renovation so we went to the Animal section. It was really cool too.

This is the statue of Abraham Lincoln in the Lincoln Memorial. We went here on our second day in Washington. We read his speeches and all about how he freed the black people in the Lincoln visitors’ center. In the Constitution, they say all men are equal and stuff but what I don’t get is, why did they slave the black people if all of them were equal??? It confuses me. Did you know that it’s the Lincoln Memorial on the American penny??? I always thought it was the White House!!!
We went to the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum and they had a room full of the treasures of history. This is the original R2D2 and C-3-P-0. There was also Kermit the frog, the signpost from MASH, the stopwatch from 60 minutes, George Washington’s uniform and sword, Abraham Lincoln’s hat he was wearing the day he was shot, Albert Einstein’s pipe, Marilyn Monroe’s gloves, Colonel Custer’s coat, Louis Armstrong’s cornet, the first computer, the first telephone, the first light bulb and a bunch of other stuff. We also saw some cool planes and the space pod that went to the moon on Apollo 11 (I think) We also went to the Art Gallery and the National Archives but we don’t have any pictures of that because there was no flash photography aloud and we couldn’t figure out how to turn the flash off on the camera.

This is the Washington Monument across from the Lincoln Memorial. We tried to get a tour to the top but it was fully booked. Dad wouldn’t have come anyway.