Erie Canal to the Atlantic Ocean

6/1/12: We're back at the Erie Canal Administration Offices in the morning where we talk to two women, and Conrad gets some questions answered.  It will cost a wopping $34.00 for us to get a ten-day permit to go through the entire Erie Canal system, and we find out that there is a boat yard on the Hudson River right before we will enter the canal where we can get our masts taken down.  We won't be sailing on the canal because there are some low bridges along its way.

Now we're driving along sylvan country roads and find ourselves in Hoosick Falls, where Grandma Moses was “discovered” at 80 and became famous for her primitive-style paintings of the area.  You know just what the countryside we are traveling through looks like; just think of Grandma Moses' paintings!  We are in the Berkshires, in Revolutionary War territory, and on our way to Manchester, Vermont.  We pass the site of the 1777 Battle of Bennington, and cross into Vermont and the Green Mountains.  There are seas of green trees covering the hills as far as we can see.  At lunchtime, we find a pub in Manchester – it reminds me of the pubs in England where my friend Anne Carlton took me on my visits to see her, and it has great food.

We drive on and on, through quaint New England villages and towns, and into New Hampshire, the “live free or die” state.  Now we are passing through old mill towns where the mill ponds are still there next to abandoned factories, and then we're back onto a highway cutting through granite.

Oh my God, at last we are crossing the Maine state line and heading for the Atlantic Ocean!  We arrive at Cape Elizabeth, and drive to the shore, right below a New England lighthouse. 


Lighthouse at Cape Elizabeth

We are at the edge of the Atlantic. We've made it from the Pacific to the Atlantic, and it's only an hour or two to Rockland, Maine where our boat is!  Today it is getting late, but tomorrow we'll be at our destination.

There it is - the Atlantic Ocean!