In Seattle are the Ballard locks. A great feat of engineering that was completed in 1917 (it is on the National Historic Registry). You can sit there on a sunny summer day and watch for hours as the boats come in and out while the locks continually fill up and out. When my parents came to visit me in 2006 we went by there and my dad was fascinated and tooks tons of pictures. They also have a fish ladder to help the salmon run. The fish ladder was updated in the 70s because the original locks had interrupted the migration of the salmon. 

The reason I bring them up is that right beside my office in Georgetown is the C&O Canal. It is a 184.5 mile system of 74 locks from Cumberland, MD to Washington, DC, completed almost a hundred years earlier. Groundbreaking was in 1828 and it was used from 1836 to 1924. It is now a National Park and they do tours on part of the canal that still holds water starting beside my office. Most of the canal isn’t watered anymore, but the park is used for its trails as well. Its really neat to see them at work especially compared to the Ballard locks. 

It was a beautiful day today so I sat outside and watched them for a while on my lunch break. You can check out some pics that I took and I also added some pics that my dad took at Ballard.