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ment sometimes added to this is, when encountering important tracks, to say "MAIN LINE--Bow Down." In addition to our car worries, we encountered also what seemed like an abnormally high number of detours and slowdowns caused by 90° curves, all of which delayed us so we didn't arrive at the Hotel Pontiac in Oswego until about midnight. We had to take whatever they had left and Willie and I got a small room with a three-quarter bed and a hacker in the next room who threatened to keep us awake the rest of the night. But at last sleep overcame us in spite of all.

The next day, Saturday was a beautiful, cool day and we began to get into the real meat of our vacation at last. We began by doing some sightseeing in Oswego where we visited Fort Ontario, the old English fort standing on a headland overlooking Lake Ontario at the mouth of the Oswego River. We walked through the galleries where the ancient cannon pointed out over the lake and commanded the river mouth. It was from this fort in 1777 that the British general, St. Leger, marched to lay seige to Fort Stanwix on the Mohawk River. A relief expedition headed by Benedict Arnold, used a ruse to frighten off St. Leger's Indians and compelled the weakened British force to retreat to Oswego. Ft. Stanwix, of course, is near the present site of Utica. I always got a great kick out of being at historic places--the places where it really happened--and this was no exception. All of us, I'm sure, got a great thrill to stand out on the ramparts of the old fort and gaze out across the blue waters of Lake Ontario and think of all the history it has seen in its day. 

After inspecting Fort Ontario, we departed via Watertown for Ogdensburg where we planned to have lunch. I wish we knew which route we took to Watertown because one of the possible routes passed through Port Ontario and hence very close to Selkirk, our old vacation spot when I was a boy, and thence via Henderson Harbor and Sackets Harbor, while the other ran inland via Pulaski and Adams. However, we made Watertown, where we promptly got lost. But we got straightened out finally and headed toward Ogdensburg over what is now 37. For the final few miles before reaching Ogdensburg, this road runs along the St. Lawrence River which we had to cross sometime soon and there was quite a discussion about which ferry to take although we finally crossed on the bridge at Cornwall. Today, we'd have gone to the AAA and had a recommended route all the way before we left Erie. As we drove along the American side of the river, we made various comments about how the Canadian side looked exactly the same as our side--you couldn't tell the difference. This astounding discovery led to our coining the phrase, "river magic", that mysterious (but missing) quality which somehow miraculously transforms a landscape by simple process of inserting a half mile of running water between it and the landscape on the other side of the water. We've referred to "river magic" many times since.

Transcription Notes:
'ment' is continued from the previous page. It's part of the word 'Embellishment'