Lockport to the Niagara River - The end of the Erie Canal

                 Lock 35 on the right and the old Lock on the left where we are tied up for the night

Lock 34 and Lock 35 in Lockport are the last locks on the Erie Canal and we were very glad to know we had at least completed them for now.  Originally there were two sets of five step locks at Lockport.  This allowed boats to go both east and west at the same time. Today two modern locks (34 & 35)have replaced the southern five locks.  The original northern five locks are still in place but are just used for overflow.  This overflow area is where we spent the night.  It was tricky getting into the space because we had to back into the narrow chamber but the captain made it look like he had done it a thousand times before.
We spent a peaceful night tied up to where barges were coming and going 180 years ago - a living history experience!

Looking down the original northern five locks

Looking up the original five locks

A million and a half gallons of water are released every time the lock is emptied!

Tonawanda is the last town on the Erie Canal.  We tied  up to the north wall on the N. Toawanda side because we heard they don't have a dockmaster so no one collects the $20 dock fee.  WRONG!   A very young dockmaster came a- knocking on our boat to collect the money...oh, well, you can't win all the time!
There are lots of restaurants here and we chose a Thai restaurant called "Yummy Thai" and it was all of that! We skipped the carousel museum as we are getting museumed out by this time!

Tonawanda's use of canal boats

Now a pizzeria

We left Tonawanda, heading west into the Niagara River, took a left turn toward Buffalo ( a right turn would bring us to Niagara Falls and we didn't want to do that!).  We thought we would try to make it to Lake Erie just because but the six foot waves made us reconsider our options.  So we took a little spin in the river and headed back down the Erie Canal--only 342 more miles before we get to Waterford!

The end of the Erie Canal

Now we will turn around and see the Erie Canal from another perspective - west to east!!!