VERONA, NY.  We successfully disconnected the motorhome and connected the Jeep in about 15 minutes this morning.  No problems.  Hallelujah!

We drove here from near Rochester and got set up by 2 pm, very early for us.  We wanted to use the remainder of the afternoon to visit the area.  Betty especially was curious about the Erie Canal, which we could see from the highway and over which we rode a bridge at one point.  After asking a few questions, it was determined that we should drive to Rome to the north.

We needed further directions once we arrived in Rome, so we stopped off at a Walgreens where a nice lady told us how to get to Erie Canal Village.  As we drove there, historic landmark signs confirmed that we were headed the right way.  Once we arrived, however, we were greeted with a sign saying that no motor vehicles were allowed.  We eventually found a road leading in, but the building there was locked with a sign stating that they closed August 31st, so come back in 2019.  It was now owned by a private owner to whom the state had sold it long ago, an example of privatizing government operations.  Things looked pretty abandoned, so we wondered what must go on up until the end of August.

Overgrown Path to Old Canal Boat and Foot Bridge

Once a Proud Survivor of the Canal Boat Days

Remnants of Old Village

Overgrown Pathway to Foot Bridge

Locked Foot Bridge

We walked over to the canal, which was not nearly as wide there as it is along the highways.  There was an old canal boat docked in the water, a walk bridge with overgrown pathway that was locked, and some evidence of what used to be a village, as the name implies, but it was disconcerting that the sign at this location was broken.

Betty Googled for more information and found a boat tour of the canal that is conducted in Herkimer, a town about 35 miles to the east on I-90.  Once we got there, we could see the tour office from the highway but had to pass through the toll station (there are tolls everywhere on the interstate highways in the Northeast and Midwest).  The man at the toll station told us to turn the wrong way, so we got a short tour of Herkimer, a town named after some Revolutionary War figure that neither of us had heard of.  Once we found the tour office, we found out that there are 1:00 and 3:00 tours, but since no one showed up for the first tour, there would be no second tour.  It is late in the season; they close in 1 1/2 weeks for the year.  The woman also told us that she used to run the village in Rome before the private owner tired of the tourism business and closed it many years ago.  100,000 people per year visited it then, with horses pulling the boats for rides, reenacting life along the canal, now a fatality of privatizing.

We wondered, if it closed years ago, what are they doing now each year up until the end of August?  She had no answer, but she still had a sign up advertising Erie Canal Village in Rome, NY.  She recommended we go around the corner to where an ambulance service has a parking lot beside the canal and walk the path that follows the canal, which we did.

Present Day Canal and Herkimer Tour Company in Background

Present Day Locks in Herkimer

After seeing Herkimer, we were glad that we did not take the tour.  The water looks bad, and the surroundings were nothing like what the old village was.  This is only a vestige of the past that has seen its day as modern replacements have rendered it obsolete.  It simply looks messy now, surrounded by noisy traffic.  We decided to drive on back to the RV park.  Not much to see here as a tourist, and the drivers here all drive like New Yorkers.

Sign by Path Along Canal in Herkimer

On one Side of Bridge the Path is Overgrown

On Other Side of the Bridge the Path Followed a Busy Highway