Rensselaer and Albany

Today we stayed at the Albany Yacht Club because we are leaving Aunt Aggie here soon and returning to Atlanta for a week.  We go home about every 6 weeks.  I always feel a bit of stress when we leave the boat.  Will she be safe?  Will all of our looping buddies be ahead of us by the time we return?
We need our southern fix, however, so we go.  And every time we have either found our friends again along the loop or found new friends that welcome us. And so we are headed to Atlanta again.

George worked on this cloudy day.  I plotted new routes for our Canadian travel. After lunch we went for an explore along the streets of Rensselaer near the marina.  Rensselaer is on the east coast of the Hudson River, and Albany is on the west bank.  We walked for about four blocks in two different directions and found little of interest.  There was only one working establishment in each block.  Mostly there were homes and businesses for sale or lease.  The area was depressed and depressing.
Other than the liquor store and a police station, there was not much going on.

We had invited two other looper boats, Penny Pinchin' and Sea Tiger III, to come for docktails, so we prepared for them.  We enjoyed our time with these new friends.  We had been at Georgetown with Penny Pinchin' but never sat down to talk.  Sea Tiger is from Naples, FL, and Penny Pinchin'  is from California.  Ron from Seattle came by and shared some stories from his three year loop adventure on his Katey Krogen.  He is on a different dock, so we had not seen him.   They will all move into the Erie Canal while we are gone, but maybe we'll meet again later this summer.

We are getting reports of different Erie Canal locks being closed due to high water.  (New York had
major thunderstorms on Friday night.)  The Erie locks also sound in bad repair, so that is worrisome.  When we looked at the loop, one of our expectations was going through the Erie Canal.  I am eager to
see them with my own eyes.

Zoe (on the right) will turn 3 on Thursday.  Can't wait to celebrate with her!

You can tell it will be a good party.