We headed out the next day to go through 6 locks. The canal is river-like and has trees on both sides here. We passed some marinas on the canal and also some tour boats. We noticed that there was not any trash or things to “River Shop” We only saw a buried toy car.
Tour boat 
No trash on canal only saw this toy car
We passed by a couple dredge barges and also by some barges that were moving the dredged material.
Dredging 
Small canal boat 
Barge tugs are short to get under bridges 
Full Barge
We could see the bike path on the side of the canal. Our neighbors, Ralph and Joanne, rode their bikes the full length of the canal last year. We saw two bikers that reminded us of them.
We had to wait on one lock to empty but for the most part we were able to just enter the locks and lock through without waiting. One was a 40.5foot lift and we had to travel under a cement wall. It looked intimidating but we managed it no issues. When we reached Rome, NY, we were at the highest point and so the next lock was one where we went down a level. Going down is easier that up according to Janis.
Letting the water out 
We have to go under that?? 
40 feet up 
Lock full – going down 
Down and gates opening
We did not have a reservation for the nights stay so we called around in between locking through locks. Unfortunately, there were no slips in Sylvan Beach so we decided to head to the other side of Lake Oneida.
Free Wall full 
Lake Oneida 
Cool Cloud 
Storm just missed us
As we entered the canal after the lake we saw a number of nice homes with docks and restaurants. We ended up at Ess-Kay Marina where we fueled up the boat then got into a slip. The weather was going to be iffy so we decided to stay two nights. So with this under our belt… the Erie Canal is complete. Next is Oswego junction!.
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