The Boat Ride

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Okay, enough of this canal history stuff, let's get on the boat!!!! The boat ride was amazing, believe me. The trip was on most of the portion of the Wabash and Erie Canal that's in the park area, from Guard Lock to the boathouse. The transportation was a replica of a canal boat, The Delphi. Unlike the boats of the 19th century, this one is powered by an electric engine. We ambled along at about 4 MPH up and down the canal. The history of the canal and Delphi was presented with the tour. The information included the interesting fact that the limestone in the area was both an asset (the refurbished lime kiln [upper left], made from bricks of the original one on that site, made limestone that was the envy of many locales) and a detriment (because limestone is porous, it always messed with the water level in the canal, forcing constant management of the level to keep it high enough for the boat traffic). As you can see by the lower left photo, it also provided a filtration system that keeps water clear and a greenish tint. The life along the canal included the villages (I'll get to that later), inns for the passengers, workers, and mules, and the support system to run the canal. Canal towns flourished quite nicely in the era of the canal transportation system. One of the things that the narrator pointed out was the way towns were marked: bridges in certain towns were painted a specific color to let the crew know where they were on the route. I mentioned this during a discussion about one of the lighthouses I visited, and it's something you don't think about in the modern world, but "back then," when there were no GPS systems, there had to be "landmarks" to help navigation. With the case of the lighthouses, they were painted a certain pattern to let the captains know not only where the coast was, but what town they were near. In a similar manner, towns and counties used different colors on the bridges that crossed the river to indicate where the boat was on the canal. I loved that ride. It was 45 minutes of sheer joy, and I'd love to go back and ride it again! PHOTOS: (Top left) A recreation of a lime kiln, made with bricks from other kilns in the area. They processed the lime for commerce. (Top right) The boathouse on the canal, where the tour turned around. (Bottom left) The clearness of the water in the canal. (Bottom right) A blue heron sitting on the tree debris in the canal.