SAXTON B. LITTLE FREE LIBRARY
319 Route 87 Columbia, CT 06237
Phone: 860 228 0350 Fax: 860 228 1569 E-mail: staff@columbiactlibrary.org

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OCTOBER 11, 2010
On the Road

***Proceed with Caution***

The following blog post is long and windy and at times may even get boring so continue if you dare!

You've got to wonder if Henry Ford would be awed by the sheer numbers of his invention on the roads today. Did he fore-see this future world that the automobile made possible?

The past two weeks my husband and I have been on the road, traveling over 4400 miles on America's roads. We could have taken a plane and got there quicker but opted to see the great countryside of our United States by the scenic route.

Initial destination, Elkhart, Indiana. Elkhart, IN, what's there, you might ask? Family? Friends? No, but I'll get to that.

We left Columbia around 7:30 AM Friday morning, September 25th, a late start, but hey, we're on ivacation. We set out determined to make this a leisurely journey, stopping wherever, whenever. In the back of my mind my expectation was to arrive in Elkhart sometime Saturday. According to Indo.com,a great website to determine how far is it?, 706 miles to Elkhart seemed doable in a couple of days. Forget it! Construction bogged us down along Route 80. Eternal miles of stop-go, mostly stop, found us leaving the highway in search of lodging around 4:30PM Friday night. Who knew that the highway fiasco would drop us in Clarion, PA, a relatively small town with lots of colleges, and in the midst of its preparations for the annual The Farmers National Bank Autumn Leaf FestivalTM. Motels were filling up quickly as was not only the festival a draw, it was also parents weekend at Clarion University. But a room we did find and after filling our bellies at some long forgotten restaurant, we headed into town for a stroll around the historic district. And here is where the first delight unfolded. Clarion has what has to be the best planned and lovely Veteran's Parks I've ever seen. It has proud individual monuments honoring its own for every branch of the service including women in the armed forces, and monuments for all wars in our history beginning with The Civil War. Main Street boasts lots of shopping and interesting restaurants, Daddy's Main Street Hog Dog, being one we wished we had discovered prior to eating. A majestic clock tower adorns the court house. These pictures, better than any I took, come from Ewingjr98's posted photos of Clarion.


Court House, Clarion, PA


Prison, Clarion, PA

Preparations by vendors were in full swing for opening day of the leaf event. I found a neat book store, The Book Nook, and had a great conversation with the young sales person. She is attending Clarion University in the Masters of Library Science Program. Her present courses have her reading lots of Young Adult books so we quickly got into a discussion of The Hunger Games Trilogy by Suzanne Collins (never let her know that's about the extent of my YA knowledge; where's Megan when you need her?). She was interested to learn that Collins is a Connecticut resident and bemoaned the fact that she had to work while her fellow students attended a book signing by Collins two nights previous.

Day two we got up bright and early and decided to ditch the highway (we weren't getting anywhere fast anyway) and flipped a coin to decide between Oil City or Pennsylvania Elk Country. Elk have made a rousing comeback in PA (and black rattlers too) and we were close to some excellent viewing stations. I was rooting for Elk country but Oil City won the toss. This turned out to be a good move as our first stop of the day was a visit to The Oil City Library


Oil City Library

where I met Sandee and Sharon, two of the most friendly library staff ever. The Oil City Library has some really neat displays and lots of nooks and crannies with wonderful books. It's a library lover's dream come true.

Here's just one of their great Autumn Displays.




They couldn't help us enough, giving us a general history of the library, the area, and pointing us in the right direction to the Drake Well Museum. The Drake Museum was in the process of being renovated but there was still lots to see in their outdoor and building exhibits.


Saxton Bee visits The Drake Oil Museum

Saturday night found us sleeping in Sandusky, Ohio, along the shores of Lake Erie. Their claim to fame is Cedarpoint Amusement Park, The Roller Coaster Capitol of the World. I counted 17 coasters on their website. We were amazed at how few people were out and about until we asked and found out that at least half the town was at Cedarpoint's Halloweekends. We were sorry we had to miss this event but hunger drew us to a nice restaurant in the historic waterfront area. Can't remember the name of the place but it had healthy food and a varied menu and was just the right place to stop. Right across the street was The Sandusky State Theater, built in 1928. That night the half of the town not at the amusement park were going to the symphony. They were dressed to kill. Tickets were only $20 and still available when we ambled by. Though the impeccably dressed ushers assured us not to worry, and that we were welcome, we felt our under dressed jean finery wasn't appropriate for the event. I think we missed a great opportunity and I wish we had attended even if we would have gotten stares. We explored more of the area and found a do it yourselfer's delight in the store Menards, kind of like a Home Depot, Staples, mini grocer, rolled into one. Too bad it was closed but I knew in my heart of hearts that it would be on our list of places to check out and the very next day, we did.

It took us three days to get to Elkhart, IN...to be continued...

Here's a book to inspire the traveler in all of us...


Stephen Fry in America: Fifty States and the Man Who Set Out to See Them All


The popular British comic celebrity recounts his visits to all fifty of the United States, where he experienced diverse regional cultures ranging from Hollywood and Silicon Valley to Wall Street and the Deep South.

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