Day 5 of the Erie Canal - Newark to Albin

Newark was pretty close to the next lock so we slept in a bit and were off the dock about 8 to see where we would end up today.  Turns out we would make it though a couple more locks but this is where we ran into a lot of lift bridges only making it about 58NM today.  The good news is these are a bit easier then locks to do but also a bit more frustrating as each operator is responsible for multiple bridges and it seems they are all issued a hand held radio to talk with boaters on which is not very powerful.  Some of the bridges they are responsible for are 200ft away and some are 5-10 miles away.  Most of these bridges only open up to a hight of 15-18ft which means that our VHF radio antenna has to be down as our boat height is about 14.5ft this highest point with the antenna down or about 19ft with it up.  The highest point of our boat is our crain which we could lower if we had to but there was no need.  The point I'm slowly getting to here is that sometimes when we would get to a bridge we would call for an opening but not get a response because the operator was at another location 10 miles away and could not hear our radio call due to lack of signal strength. Then when you would get ahold of them either by phone or maybe after having to climb up to our roof to put the antenna up only to then go back out to take it down to go though the bridge and do it all over again a in a few more miles.. needless to say the process sometimes got frustrating.  I'm told they went to handheld radios so the operators would not have to listen to all of the chatter from the locks or bridges around them but it also means quite often they don't know your coming which adds some additional wait time while they rather fill or drain a lock upon our arrival.

Albin was a pretty decent sized town and there was one other looper boat tied up between the two lift bridges for the night.  We went for a 15 minute walk took in most of the town and had dinner at the local diner as again most of the restraints still seemed to be closed.  Again the city offered free power and a free wall to tie to for the night which was located right between the police and fire stations.

Something strange happened at this point in our trip.  We found the local ice cream shop and for some reason had no urge to stop.  We did stop in, stuck our head in, and looked at all the flavors but for some reason none of us wanted ice cream.  I think something serious has happened!  Have we finally had our fill?