Thursday, May 24

Dinner entertainment

Harvesting the milfoil

After an early morning dip in Opinicon Lake we locked through Davis Lock and made our way to Jones Falls Locks 39-42.  This area, with a mile-long series of rapids and a 60-ft. elevation drop is considered one of the most impressive engineering feats on the canal.  A trail leads to the historic dam and Sweeney's House (a completely restored lock tender's house).  "C.D.H.A.Q." appears many times in the Sweeney Diary - it refers to his chaotic married life and means "Catherine Drunk.  Had a Quarrel."  Glad we have not been making these kind of entries in our blog!
We left the Lake Region and followed the Cataraqui River into Kingston.  The river was full of vast amounts of milfoil and we followed a narrow channel where it had been cleared (think milfoil harvester in Minnetonka or Pewaukee).
As you often do when traveling through the canals, you keep locking through with the same people.  This happened to us over the past two days ........ a pair of "Canadian Locals" who had the inside scoop on the region and could not have been nicer to us.  They were able to convince Charlie that we needed to make one more detour from our Great Loop Route and spend a couple of days in the Thousand Island cruising ground at the beginning of the St. Lawrence River. 
This would mean back tracking thirty miles each way and enduring some on-shore touring.
We spent the night in Gananoque, Ontario.  Once an important mill town, it is now the commercial and tourist center for the Canadian Thousand Islands.  The marina had both laundry and Internet, both of which have been in short supply as of late.

Cruising the channel - Rideau Canal

 The local Muskie Restaurant had both good food & entertainment ........... we bonded with Bob & his one man show.