Erie says: I see your Chili’s and raise you a Coldstone

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So we drove up to Erie yesterday. We didn’t get there until 3:30 and we spent a chunk of time at the house. The paint & carpet we had replaced look fantastic. We’ve always been pleased with work done by Brandel’s. It looked so good, so natural that I was on my way downstairs when I remembered they did the carpets too. I took photos & will share later.

In fact, when I was looking over the house, I thought, “I would buy this.” The light is really lovely in the house. I got some great photos of the kids running around. All the rooms are now white or cream except the kitchen, which is a flat dove grey. It was freshly painted when we moved in and the countertops & tile really only match grey so we didn’t see the need to paint it. As you know Bob, we painted our new kitchen bright orange right away. To the dismay of most everyone who saw it, I think. I love my orange kitchen.

So anyway, we then drove to Old Navy & Borders. I wanted to go to ON b/c they have a plus department and our ON does not. Ours is also way, way smaller. At Borders, I had a lovely Irish cream latte and shared a cookie four ways. Hawk had lemonade, Z had apple juice and H had milk. By the time we were done buying almost $200 worth of books and a DVD (the 1994 Little Women for under $10), it was after 7 p.m. so we needed to have supper. We went to the Longhorn, which was lovely as always. They’re a very family-friendly place and have a good menu for kids. I had steak & a potato & salad. Hawk had chicken and veggies (their steamed veggies are fantastic). Kids had chicken tenders, mashed potatoes/fries and grapes. I ordered a side of broccoli for them to share but he kitchen got confused when I substituted mashed for fries for H and gave me two sides of mashed. She took it off the bill so no worries.

Then we went to Target, which is so much nicer & bigger than ours (the Altoona Target checkouts don’t even have conveyor belts; it’s fubar). By then it was after 10 and we still had to go to Wegmans to buy Smiths hot dogs and Romolo chocolates. We did that and got gas at the Interchange Rd CF (they don’t have a changing area of any kind, which thoroughly chaffed my cheese) and hit the road. This means we got home about 1 a.m.

There have made a lot of changes in the parts of Erie we saw. What happened to the retaining wall at The Longhorn anyway? When did the Coldstone open? How about the PNC on the hill in that new area? And so help me, if/when Erie gets that Pottery Barn I said was going in there, I’m going to be peeved. It should have been there years ago so I could shop in it! Oh well. I have an Ikea only 100 miles away now. And a Chili’s. And a kickass B&N. But we had to go all the way to Erie for a Blur CD

I love Erie. And I like Altoona and State College a whole big bunch. I have what I need and then some. What more can you want?

Oh and this spring or summer, I’ll be taking you on a photo tour of Bumblefuck and the greater Bumblefuck area. We’ll go to the pharmacy w/ a soda counter, our high school, the railyards, maybe even the feedmill if you’re lucky. The sign out right now just says “ducklings.”

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