It’s been a long while since I wrote here about any of my walks. There are a lot of reasons for that, but I went for a nice walk today and think I’ll post some photos from it.

From 2010-08-17

Market Street. Old Western Block building Art Gallery. The fellow who sells chainsaw carvings was working in front of the shop.

I haven’t done much walking of late because I have been riding my trike a lot. I rode 25 miles yesterday from Pendleton to Lockport and back, stopping for breakfast at the Sugar Shack in Lockport. It seems odd to load up my bike on the truck, drive to Pendleton, unload it, ride around, back to Lockport and the go back to Pendleton, load up the truck and drive home to Lockport, but that’s exactly what I often do. The reason for the start in Pendleton is that’s where the bike club meets for the ride on Monday mornings. I meet them there and go wherever the ride goes that day. A couple of the rides go to Lockport, but I never know which weeks do. Some go other directions, off to Clarence or North Tonawanda. I like the ride because it’s a pretty laid-back bunch of riders, mostly retirees and we all enjoy stopping for breakfast somewhere.

But that’s yesterday, not today’s walk. I decided to take a walk this morning. The weather was really nice with low humidity compared to the past weeks, but still warm and sunny. I don’t ride the bike every day, but want to start exercising every day, so I figured a walking day was in order.

First thing I saw, not more then a couple block in was a large crowd of people on the “Big Bridge.” It looked like a group looking at the locks. It turned out to be a press conference for Carl Paladino, the Candidate for Governor. Several TV cameras were set up there and photographers from the papers.

From 2010-08-17

Paladino press conference with the locks as a backdrop

They then started walking down Main Street. Not wandering, taking in the sights, but walking with a purpose. I was going to my bank, so I was going that way. Pretty soon, I was walking along with Carl, but on the opposite side of the street. He turned into a building after a few blocks. I kept going to the bank. When I came back from making my deposit, I walked down that side of the street. They were still inside and a few people were waiting on the sidewalk. I saw from the sign on the door that it’s the Board of Elections office, so he must have been filing some kind of petition. I’ll have to watch the news.

From 2010-08-17

Mystery boat on Canal

I walked down Market Street. My intention was to walk the same area of Widewaters and both sides of the canal I had been doing earlier in the summer, but instead of driving there, start from home walking. It turned out to be a nice walk and the hill added a little more exercise.

I came across a couple riding touring bikes near the Exchange Street bridge. They asked me if the water from the drinking fountain was any good, or if it came from the canal! I told them I had just had some and it was good. We struck up a conversation about bikes and touring. They were from Ontario, but were camped in Medina and had rode in to see the Locks and Lockport. I ran into them again on my way back in front of the place with the chainsaw carvings.

I crossed the canal and went away from Lockport on the gravel side of the path. There were some men working on the Adams Street bridge which was closed and in the raised position.

I made my usual loop and crossed back to the Market Street side at the Cold Springs Road Bridge and stopped for lunch at Widewaters. I saw another of those old fashioned canal boats tied up at the marina. They must hire them out somewhere.

On the way back, there was a small boat in the canal near the Lake Ave. bridge making a beep-beep-beep sound. It sounded like a truck backing up, but never stopped, no matter what direction they moved. Two people were in it wearing either flourescent vests or lifejackets over some kind of blue shirts and pants. A uniform of some sort, but I couldn’t make out what. They were also wearing what looked like hearing protectors, but could have been earphones, I suppose. They were poking around along the canal banks with a thing on the front of the boat that had some prongs on it that they dropped into the water near the banks. They something would jump up and they would catch it in a net and drop it in a cooler in the boat. I couldn’t make out what they were catching, but it must have been small. I’m guessing they were some wildlife agency, DEC or similar and taking samples of some animal for some study.

From 2010-08-17

Gazebo entertainment

On the final leg of my walk, I stopped by the Canal Street area to see who was playing today. I met the fellow there playing guitar. He even sat down and chatted with me while he took a break, but I can’t remember his name. I’ll dig it up and add it to the photo captions. He was very good, singing familiar songs and playing the guitar very well. He said he taught at a local music store. As usual, there were very few people there to see the show. The gazebo is a nice place and the music there is a good idea, but it is so hot in the sun that almost nobody can stand to stay and listen to it. They really need to get something to create some shade if they want people to hang out there and enjoy it. If they had people, they could get some food vendors to come there and I think they’d sell a lot eventually.

Incidentally, you can click on any of these photos and it will take you the the album on Picasaweb where I am keeping them. There are more photos from today that aren’t in this blog post. I only used my cell phone because I didn’t carry along a bigger camera, but mostly they turned out okay.