I spent entirely too much time this week working my way through Edward Rutherford’s 860 page tome New York.

It is fascinating.  It begins with the early Indian and Dutch settlers on Manhattan and goes right into the 21st Century.

By coincidence, last night I was reading the part about the construction of the Erie Canal and woke up this morning to hear on the early news that today is the anniversary of its October 26, 1825 opening.  Now I’ve spent hours looking at maps and pictures online.

I loved reading about how Governor Clinton, who was widely ridiculed for this “folly,” on its completion, carried two buckets of water from Lake Erie and poured them into New York harbor to symbolize that the two were now a contiguous waterway.  I am only sad when I was young and spent a year living near the canal that I did not take the opportunity to explore its entire length.  That’s just the kind of thing I love to do.