Oh, happy day!!!!  We are finally on the move again.  We left Shady Harbor Marina this morning at 8:00 and headed north (east?).  We know now why we named our boat Journey instead of Destination!!  We have changed our route and are now heading in to Lake Champlain.  The Erie Canal is still closed and does not look like it will be opening any time soon.  We were almost ready to apply for NY residency.  We had been in the past two marinas for so long!!  Our route will now take us thru Lake Champlain to Sorel, Quebec and then over to Ottowa.  From there we will go do the Rideau Canel to Kingston Canada, which is where we would have come out had we taken the Erie Canal.   We will travel an additional 300 miles. From there we will continue our old route thru Canada.  We now have to be concerned about exiting Lake Michigan before Labor Day and the winter cold fronts. 

The day started out with rain and it continued on and off thru the day.  It was wonderful how it quit raining when we had to go thru the locks.  We went thru 3 locks today and they were so much fun.  If Tom had not been there yelling at me, it would have been better.  We were with 4 more boats going thru these locks.  We all ended up in Mechanicville, NY tonight.  As we were exiting our first lock, I had taken our $40 lock pass out to the front of the boat, where Dad and I were sitting.  I placed it under my camera so it would not blow away.  Well……there happened to be something that I was so excited about taking its picture, I grabbed my camera and WHOOPS, over the side the pass went.  Well, anyone that knows Tom knows he would kill me for losing a $40 pass.  I yelled “Pass overboard” and he so gallantly turned the boat around and let me pick it up with our net.  We were the first boat in line and we had to drop out of line to turn around.  Tom is so good, though, he turned on a dime and put me right on the pass.  Oh, happy day…again.  The other boats radioed their praise at my agility in picking up the waterlogged pass!!!  The current was screaming at the locks.  Tom did such a good job getting in, past the debris in the water. 

I am dismayed about not being able to download pics again tonight.  I will try again tomorrow and it my be a whole blog a just pics.