Boldt Castle

When planning our activities for the Memorial Day weekend, Aidan suggested that we visit Boldt Castle. He had picked up a brochure way back in December when we stopped in at a New York visitor center as we entered the state on our way home. We looked it up on the map, saw that it was less than two hours away and decided it would be our Saturday destination.

Boldt Castle is located on Heart Island in the St. Lawrence River. Rather than go into the story of Boldt Castle here, you can read about it on the official web site. Before going to the castle, we drove into the village of Alexandria Bay for lunch. Alex Bay was, in a word, disappointing. And another word for it is tacky. James summed it up well when he said that it looks like a smaller, more rundown version of Myrtle Beach. And we don't like Myrtle Beach.

After a passable lunch, we drove onto Wellesley Island to the Boldt Castle Yacht House. We took the water shuttle from the Yacht House over to Heart Island and the castle. It was slightly overcast but temps were in the low 70s, which made for a lovely day to wander around the grounds. Most of the exteriors of the various buildings have been restored but very little of the interior of the house has been completed, but it is still amazing. Every window has an amazing view - that's the beauty of living on an island!

Following are my favorite photos of the day, but the web site has, of course, far better views.

Nine Mile Creek Aqueduct

We took advantage of a gorgeous day on Saturday and drove down to Camillus to the Erie Canal Park. The park was celebrating the completion of the restoration of the Nine Mile Creek Aqueduct, which was constructed in 1844 to carry canal boats over Nine Mile Creek and was used until 1918. Although the web site still indicates in places that the restoration is underway, you can see photos of the project in the aqueduct portion of the Camillus Erie Canal Park site.

There was a parade of a few boats and kayaks down the canal to the aqueduct, then a small land parade across the aqueduct. We were most excited to see and hear the Syracuse Scottish Pipe Band:


We also enjoyed seeing the steam engine chugging away:


Aidan had a good time being, well, Aidan:


He also enjoyed building a project with Rick, the nice Home Depot project man:


It is funny how he will take direction and suggestions from a total stranger without one word of protest!

We drove back home to B'ville and enjoyed a nice lunch on the patio at Lock 24 restaurant while watching boats go through the lock.