BAD DOG!

June 20-21, 2026

St. Johnsville marina was a really nice spot for an evening. Very accommodating dock master, wonderful to be with our friends Scott and Amy Andrews and Jeff and Ann White. Scott and Amy had two of their kids there as well.

Bella and I took a walk over to a nearby park and threw the ball. On the way back, I made the mistake of allowing her to go into the Erie Canal with the ball. She loves to hide her ball in rocks and then frantically paws at the rock to get the ball back. Sometimes the rock is not accommodating and the ball gets stuck. Sometimes I can help get it out and other times, it is lost. On this occasion, she got the ball stuck and it was so far down I couldn’t help. I tried to get her to come out, but she is a goner by then, not listening and totally focused on getting the ball back. As she was in the canal, I didn’t want to leave her, but I went back to the boat and had Howard come over to help. He had to get into the water, wade over to where Bella was pawing at the rocks, get the ball and lug her out. Not sure if that is attention deficit disorder or just a golden retriever trait, but it really cuts into your afternoon.

Bella in the zone and not paying attention.

Success! Notice Howie’s pants-he had to go into the water, use the hook to get Bella’s ball and convince her to come out of the water.

We headed out the next morning as a fleet of seven boats. FYI, going through locks with that many boats is rough. It typically takes one boat about 3-5 minutes to get into the lock and a couple of minutes to get back out of the lock. Consider that 5-7 boats have to do this and it really cuts into the momentum of the day. Also, you can only go as fast as the boat in front of you as the canal is narrow. Needless to say, it took us about 8 hours to get through 7 locks.

I think we were the 6th boat in the fleet.

Heading into a lock with a few boats ahead and at least one behind us.