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C & O Canal Trip
Members of Pack 209 visited Chesapeake and Ohio Canal National Historical Park in Potomac, Maryland.
The boys and their families learned alot about the canal while there. The canal was originally intended to be about 350 miles long, but after over 20 years of hard work, the canal was only 184 miles long. It runs from Georgetown to Cumberland. The canal was started by President John Quincy Adams in 1828.
The boys and their families rode on a canal boat, which was pulled by two mules. We started out by being pulled by two of the riverboat ladies into the lock. Once we were inside the lock, the doors at the back of the lock were closed and the wickets at the front of the lock were opened to raise the level of the water eight feet so that it equaled the level of the canal. Once the level was raised, the canal boat was then attached to the two mules, who pulled the boat at a stupendous speed of 5 miles per hour.
We traveled about a mile down the canal; the the boat captain and his crew unhitched the mules and turned the canal boat around manually. The mules were then reattached and we headed back to our starting point.
Once back in the lock, the doors were again closed, but this time the water level was dropped eight feet so we could leave the lock. But instead of the ladies pulling us out of the lock using ropes, they then opened the wickets of the upper lock and the water surfed us out of the lock and back into the lower canal.
Afterwards, we found several picnic tables and sat down to eat lunch in the shade. Then the boys and their families went on a half mile hike to one of the lock overlooks. After that they crossed the lock and looked out over the falls on the Potomac.
Click on thumbnails to see full size image.
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