friday in erie

It was a very busy Friday.

The day started with a 10K Volkssport walk that cover every square inch of downtown Erie and the waterfront. It began at the Avalon Hotel. We were sitting there and saw an interesting sculpture in the courtyard. Turns out it was a frog. In medieval armor. It was created in 2001, and executed by someone I went to grad school with. Small world. It was not the last frog we encountered. Some survived the years better than others.

The trail we took was part of the Great Lakes Seaway Trail series. There's maybe nine of them. Mostly in New York. There was a lot of history on this trail, and a lot of historic markers—both Pennsylvania and Erie. We read some of them.

It also went past the Civic Center and the Seawolves. In the lot we found this little guy ready to batter up. 

Then we headed down to the waterfront. The Niagra was out of town. Kind of disappointing. But we went to Bicentennial tower. But they don't let you use the stairs. You must use the elevator—the view is fantastic from the top. You can see Presque Isle, the monument and one of the lighthouses, not to mention downtown Erie.

As we walked the route,  we walked around and thru "Celebrate Erie" several times. It took several blocks and a couple of parks. It is a four day celebration of music, art, and really delicious-looking carnival food, and a little real food too. Part of the festivities included chalk drawings down one full block. Above they are working on Jim Morrison. His hair will be pink and purple.

After picking up the car, we headed to Presque Isle. The goal was to survey the route for tomorrows race—the terrain, how long it took to get there, and of course look at lighthouses. There were none to climb.  The course is fairly flat, and has sections of shade and sun.

Bonnie had picked up some brochures and one thing was a boat tour.  So we took it. It was 90 minutes. Captain Gene was informative but I had a hard time hearing him. The girls in front of me were possessed by a Chatty Kathy dolls! He kept shooting them "the look". They didn't notice. I wanted to say shut the f*@k up. But I didn't.

The cruise was 90 minutes. Afterwards we drove the second half of the course.  With a stop at the Presque Isle lighthouse (now someone's home), walking in the sand, and dipping our toes into Lake Erie.

Our final stop before an early dinner—we had no lunch—was to pick up our race packets at the convention center.

We are all set for the main event tomorrow. We need to be there by 6, so we are leaving the hotel at 5:30 am.

Early to bed tonight!