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Cleverdale, NY

34 miles (row), 2 miles (walk)

I’m home. Yesterday’s departure from Chipman Point at 5:45 may have been a bit early, as I had none of the trouble I’d anticipated in winding my way up ‘La Chute’ to Ticonderoga’s town park. At this moment I sit on mom’s porch ‘ the morning after,’ a hot cup of coffee and a day to do nothin’ at all in front of me, and the feeling is bittersweet; the last three weeks established a healthy, challenging, and ever-varying routine concentrated on both enjoying the moment and achieving a goal. What’s not to like – and miss - about that? Yet here, home, with friends and family and an on-demand cup of coffee … well, as I’ve said all through this journey, I’m a very lucky, lucky man.

Yesterday’s sunrise emerged over Vermont, ‘La Chute’ was largely clear, and Doug and Susie Livingston arrived right on schedule to enable me to cart my boat up the hill – a vigorous 2-mile portage – to Lake George. They also delivered an egg salad sandwich and a vanilla malt, the only fare I would eat, or need, to power myself home. A tip o’ the sunhat to Bob and the crew at Snug Harbor Marina, who allowed me to re-launch the boat with good cheer and no fee … and after a five-mile run on Champlain, I was only 29 miles from home.    

La Chute

Where Lake George flows into Lake Champlain

Within two hours, a south wind came up that would be on the nose all day; what could have been a relaxing final sleigh ride down the lake was, instead, a tough, slow slog down the east side. That these clear, inviting waters were familiar and prompted the best kind of nostalgia eased the pain, though, and by 6:30 PM I arrived to cheers, hugs, and kebabs from Hannaford.

Thanks again to Doug and Susie for their heroic logistics support, to Bob and Bean and company for their moral support north of Black Mountain Point, and to son Matt for checking on his dad a few hours later, reminding me again of the warm welcome ahead. You all made a final hard push for home a little bit easier.

So … last night my head hit a real pillow for the first time in three weeks, and I don’t remember it. Instant sleep. Instant. Today I’ll assemble the bits and pieces of my 3-week universe … I’ll take my steaming laundry to a laundromat in town rather than tax our ‘lil Whirlpool, I’ll disassemble and clean boat parts and hardware, and I’ll sleep and swim. And repeat.

And as odd as it sounds in the reading, I’ll write again when Peg arrives with my computer; the handwritten journal has been a wonderful old school throwback medium, but I’ll look to my keyboard for deeper stuff in the coming weeks, if only for my own sense of closure to this blog.

Peg, thanks for the transcription and editing of it all, for even sending a hard copy to my techno-peasant brother, and for being there in every way … including finding my wallet by telephone. You rock!

If you’ve read, thanks for reading. If you’ve passed a gift to Boys’ Latin, thanks for that generosity as well; ‘paying it forward’ leads to our best selves, yes?

More blog later!

Peace, love, and happiness … and thanks for being aboard.  

Lake Champlain

Chipman Point, VT

19 miles, 1 lock

I’m off the water at 2 pm today after 19 easy miles up southern Lake Champlain. If there were ‘bankers hours’ in a rowing expedition, this is it. Or them? Chipman Point, a lovely spit of land at a particularly narrow point of the lake, affords me a good jumping-off point for Ticonderoga tomorrow morning. I’ve moved my cart rendezvous with Doug to 9 AM so I can hopefully beat the predicted turbulent weather tomorrow afternoon. Thanks, Doug!

This morning’s rowing was sublime … even a bit sad … as I’ve come to love the sense of adventure, and progress to a beloved destination, over these last three weeks. The ospreys barked out their warnings at each nav tower.

And a couple took turns circling overhead, perhaps considering my cheesy straw hat as possible material for the nest. I’d be easy pickings for the likes of them if they decided to get serious.

As one proceeds north on Champlain, the lake opens up like a picture book, a delightful development after 200+ miles of canal confinement.

Granite cliffs are appearing, the water is clarifying …. And hey, it’s Vermont!    

The row today was proceeded by my horror this morning in discovering the breech in my tent that one thousand mosquitoes had already communicated to their thousand friends. I must have been pretty tired not to have detected the transfusion that was taking place … or maybe the Chicken Parm served as an innoculant. Sadly, every mosquito who paid the ultimate price showed evidence of an earlier score. I’ve got some sanitizin’ to do when I get home.

The placid nature of this morning’s row incited some reflection about these past 20 days, particularly the rhythms of this sojourn from the high, clean waters of the Trent-Severn and its dozens of lakes to the truly oceanic and thrilling expanse of Lake Ontario to the Oswego/Erie/Champlain canals … placid, mostly, but not when the Tstorms sweep in! Skinny water, wide water, crystalline water, muddy water, dead calm to deadly rolling … I’ve been able to see it all over these last three weeks – how lucky I’ve been to have the time and to enjoy the blessing of Peg and my family to go explore.

I love you all more than I can say, and my time to think and remember and recognize my many blessings has brought me closer to all of you than ever … but the hugs will wait until after a long, hot shower.

Peace, love, and happiness …   

My Best Purchase

Bonus Blog!

While rowing on a sliding seat delivers a full body workout, some might wonder what challenges are inherent in a carpal tunnel-like scenario such as this. Let’s break it down. As of tonight, Day 19, we’ve clicked off 642 miles. If we took 4 mph as an average, that’s 180 hours in the seat. Adding 70 or so locks to the mix at, say, 15 minutes average per lock, we’ll add about 17 more ‘sitting’ hours … maybe 200 total hours to date with two days to go.

Even though the hands, wrists, arms, shoulders, hips and legs are all moving with every stroke, the derriere sits. This concentration of weight and focal energy led me to the best purchase of this adventure.

The bare sliding seat, standard on the boat. This hardwood seat of elegant craftsmanship features slightly ‘dished’ halves that would comfortably accommodate the posterior of an Olympic balance beam medalist. Sadly, as I am a bit of a ‘wide body,’ my backside simply overwhelms this seat pan … and after an hour or two, pain ensues. Towels, shorts, or thin cushions are similarly compressed after a while. A solution needed to be found if long distance rowing was to be pursued. (Sorry for the passive verbs.)

I turned to the long-distance trucker community. Who knows more about ‘active sitting’ than these people? Their answer? The Dura-Max.

This cushion did indeed extend ‘time in the seat’ to unimagined lengths. Up until Monday, July 17, it was ‘the answer’ to fanny fatigue. Taking time to stretch every few hours was still imperative, and the Dura Max, while not ‘plush’ or ‘luxuriant,’ nevertheless represented a quantum leap over all other experiments. Yet, could there be more?

But then, on Monday, July 17, at the town dock adjacent to the Fonda exit of the New York State Thruway, I saw it: across the road, a retail store dedicated to … truckers! My people! No strangers to pain!

I gimped across the road hoping to find a way to augment my tiring Dura Max. I’m sure it was as tired of me as I was of it; we both needed help, a kind of mediator to bring each of us back to our best selves.

On a low shelf I found ‘Black/Noire siege angulaire, bulles massent la region lombaire du dos!’ This translates, I think, to ‘Comfort Bubble Wedge’ ..  and to success, placed on top of the Dura Max which is itself draped over the wooden seat pan, ‘siege angulaire’ adds just the little tad of extra buoyancy I’d been needing … the two cushions work in silent but agreeable harmony, and my seat pain issues have now been subordinated to my creaky neck, which is tiring of peeking around to see where I’m going.

So my $19.95 gamble on a Comfort Bubble has paid off handsomely; now I don’t have to have the buns of an Olympic gymnast to be comfy in my boat!  

   

The Champlain Canal

Whitehall, NY

36 miles. 6 locks

I walked into this tavern at a marina and saw it right away: a preposterously over-proportional chicken parm and pasta – whatever physical advancement that may have come from 9 hours / 36 miles of rowing is about to be obliterated … or at least neutralized.

It’s a testament to Kate’s sharing at Three Amigos last night that I got through the day on Nature Valley breakfast bars, fingers in the peanut butter, and lots and lots of fluids. Kate, that meal did the job it had to do … and possibly this Chicken Parm will step up as well.

Today’s rowing? After 8 more miles on the contrarian Hudson, I left the river and spent the rest of the day on the neutral waters of the Champlain Canal. Long stretches of perfectly straight waterway – four or five miles at a stretch with nary a turn – were dotted with lovely farms, friendly cows almost wading in to say hello, and narrower stretches bordered by 20’ granite walls. I had no fresh batteries for my radio, and the miles reeled by in a kind of languorous haze – lovely, really. I can’t believe I’m a day or two from a finish.

Well, between that last page and this page I dispatched a prodigious Chicken Parm. Don’t they say that you shouldn’t eat anything larger than your head?

I’m taking my chances sleeping (illegally) in a park tonight. I’m now out of the warm embrace of the lock system and will have to live by cunning and guile. The tent won’t go up until after dark – if it will go up at all – but it’s a lovely evening and if I’m under the stars, so be it.

Some industrial barges carrying stone and four or five chatty boaters were the extent of my social interface today … I will have to re-learn the art of conversation, perhaps? The discussions I have with myself on the boat, frequent and topically unpredictable, often end in a spat or one of us just leaving, but they do pass the time.  

When I last rowed this stretch – three or four years ago – sections of the canal hosted huge dredging barges and specialized equipment attending to the GE chemical waste mess near Fort Edward. Today, not a sign of any activity; all done, all clean? I saw a lot of people near the water and a lot of water toys and ladders on docks … but no one in the water. Is it safe?

Oh!! The TV here in the restaurant features a beaming OJ; a good day for him, too?

If I don’t get tossed into jail tonight, tomorrow I’ll head up the 20 miles or so to Ticonderoga … but I’ll camp across the lake in Vermont, at a boat ramp forever distinguished by Brian’s ‘Hasselhoff Moment’ as his fatigue compelled him to eat a cheeseburger while on all fours. (See ‘Row, Canada!’) Hasselhoff Point is a good starting point for the final push home on Saturday; Doug Livingston has consented to be my ‘wheel man’ as he’ll deliver the cart I’ll need to push my boat through Ticonderoga. Guys like Doug – unconditional and generous friends – make things happen!

Peg, thanks again for transcribing my sloppy journal; maybe post this page to remind the people of the magic of techno peasant and computer maven?

Sure thing, Al 

I’m going to pay my tab and go hang out in the park. Wish me luck?

Peace, love, and happiness  

And here's an adorable dog that wanted to join Al in the boat

The home stretch

Schuylerville Marina, Hudson River

26 (hard) miles

Breakfast with Mugsy in Schuylerville

I write an unprecedented early morning blog for a number of reasons:

1. I slept under / next to yet another bridge last night, and such locations don’t encourage rolling over for another 40 winks
2. A major tent malfunction has rendered my habitat into little more than a sleeve, a vinyl envelope, a kind of 70’s leisure suit that, while still effective, does not encourage malingering.
3. Mexican food – even if it was the best Mexican food I’ve ever eaten – does not sit lightly, or long, for me.
4. I’ve got get-home-itis. When the proprietors of this wonderful – and Schuylerville Marina is wonderful – place arrive this A.M., I must pay them before I leave. It’s 5:48, the boat is packed, I’m good to go.

Inspecting the tent

Kate and Rose drove over from Saratoga last night to take me to dinner, and Three Amigos in Schuylerville is worth a row from anywhere – great food! Rosie of course charmed our corner of the restaurant, and I didn’t stop her.

Yesterday’s 26-mile row up the Hudson was a real slog. As son Matt had predicted, all that water that pushed me through the Erie Canal is now bedeviling my every stroke up the Hudson. Yesterday was one of my shortest mileage days …. but also one of the more grueling days as well. Of course, the boat doesn’t know upstream from downstream; it just needs to be rowed, and ya gotta pull the oars to move it. So yesterday I tried not to look at the mach meter or think much about speed – just efficiency, line, and Motown. That I’m a simple man that can channel his few thoughts in tedium is perhaps, in the end, my best suit on this row.

Adverse current aside, this stretch of the Hudson is lovely. Yesterday’s meander past the Saratoga Battlefield, countless graceful herons, and bucolic farms along the banks reminds me yet again of the beauty in the backyard. Facing backwards, at 4 mph for 606 miles along some of the most beautiful waterways in the country (and Canada) gives one the opportunity to consider what a precious environment we have. Wow, what a tacky sentence, even for 6:10 AM. 

      

Rosie, Kate … thanks for the joy of your company last night … and thanks, too, to anyone who has hit the feeder bar at Boys’ Latin? This whole thing is masquerading as a fundraiser, but the truth is the funds make a great experience accessible to kids who would otherwise have to take another path … so, please, participate?

So on that mercenary note, I’m gonna pack up and hit the trail – Lock 5 opens at 7, and I want to be knockin’ at the door when the Canal Crew arrives.

Today’s Thursday … I’m hoping to be on Lake George by Saturday afternoon. Maybe I make it all the way, maybe I’ll have to do a final overnight on a favorite island on my ancestral waters … but the end is in sight!

Big ups,

   Peace, love, and happiness          

More equipment damage - but Al's temporary repair to
his guide boat seems to be holding

Getting close to home

Waterford, on the Hudson!

37 miles

The hills of Troy near the end of the Erie

Gentle reader, much time has elapsed since my last entry, but I’ve been busy … and hopefully, you have, too. The only activity more boring than watching a guy row is watching people waiting for his blog about rowing. In the words of my brave sister Tia, ‘Keep moving.’

Last night – all of yesterday in fact – was dominated by very bad storms …. Lots of heavy rain, lightning, the kind of stuff that pins a rower to the shore, hiding under an overhanging bough, wondering if hiding under a high object is really such a good idea.

I pitched my tent in a driving rainstorm, thus assuring an aquatic nocturnal repose … wet, a little cold, and hey, what’s that smell?

I met Marco in the maelstrom, a plucky canoer on his way to Brooklyn. He’s kayaking a canoe – the physical demands of which are beyond my comprehension – but Marco looked buff and up to the task. He’d wisely strapped a bike to his canoe; we should all have an escape pod. Godspeed, Marco!

Today dawned grey but turned hot, yet the best good fortune of the day emerged from the very rain that made my night so miserable; the lock crews and dam fellows were letting a lot of water flow downstream, so by pure meteorological serendipity I was seeing 1-2 extra mph on my mach meter, allowing me to get to Waterford today – the end of the Erie – through 8 locks. This felt like a Big Day.

Free propulsion

Tomorrow I turn north on the Champlain Canal … and all the rain water will be coming at me. It all evens out. I’ll lose 1-2 mph, but I’m in my last 100-mile leg, and sheer mad-dog willpower may count for something. I’m finally confident of my conditioning … but I’m itching to get home, too. Could be a bad combo?

I damaged the boat yesterday by ramming a submerged log. The cutwater at the waterline took a real ding, and now the boat yaws to the left with every stroke instead of tracking on rails as is its usual manner. Tonight I’ll try a duct tape repair … and hope for just a bit of improvement.

Tonight, when I pulled into Waterford, I was greeted by Jane and Charles Williamson, the kind of folks who know intuitively that Gator Aid, water, and Vitamin Water can’t take you to places accessible by vodka and tonic. These open hearts along the way are an unchoreographed pleasure of this trip – delightful people taking like at their own speed, generous with their time, curiosity, and libations. Godspeed, Jane and Charles! They are headed north to Champlain as well, so our paths my well cross again.

I’m getting all the food groups in with this Shepherd’s Pie, my first legit meal since lunch yesterday, and as I write this my stuff is strung out on trees and bushes in the park, drying out from last night’s deluge. Life is good.

You get hungry, maybe you get a Shepherd’s Pie.

You get wet and cold, maybe the sun comes out.

You want to talk to nice people unconditionally, you meet Jane and Charles.

You want your boat to track straight again, you find some duct tape.

I’m a simple man of simple needs these past 16 days. And lucky, too.   

Too wet to write tonight

Cranesville, NY - lock 10 of the Erie Canal 
36 miles

Al reported hellacious rain & storms and a tent full of water at the end of the day. It had started out OK:

He promises a blog tomorrow when the wet and winds won't jeopardize his journal.

Either the Nina or the Pinta going through Lock 10