Day 121 -- July 30, 2003 -- Wednesday

I visited Jamestown, New York today -- the hometown of Lucille Ball. I saw the Lucy-Desi Museum and then went to Niagara Falls.

This Wednesday featured our radio show as usual.

I drove to New York and U-turned back to visit the Pennsylvania Visitor Information office along I-90. Since I saw so little of PA this time, I wanted to stock up on information for the next trip. Esther was the Pennsylvania Visitor Information lady on I-90 at the border of Pennsylvania and New York. I met John and Mary Ann from Syracuse while there.

Eastern Pennsylvania is very pretty -- as is western New York. I liked Jamestown. Lots of flags -- appears to be a very patriotic town. It was also nice to see big Lucy murals on several of the buildings around town.

The Lucy-Desi Museum was tiny. Not much to see, but it was full of people. The gifts and souvenirs occupied a significant portion of the building, AND there was another Lucy-Desi Museum Souvenir and Gift Shop in the adjoining storefront.

Jones Bakery is across the street from the museum, so I stopped in for an Almond Tart -- cooked in an individual-sized pie pan. Very tasty. I met two bakery folks there, John and Anastasia.

I passed through Gerry, New York. Gerry is a "Rodeo City," which is kind of unusual. You don't think of New York as being in the rodeo business. The town was very patriotic; there are flags on every street pole and many houses.

Ryan, John Riggins, and I saw Niagara Falls about eight years ago. I visited again today as I felt it had to be included on the Round America trip. Truth is, it is really more of a Canadian sight. There is little or nothing on the US side; the best views and a wide variety of tourist attractions and hotels are on the Canadian side. So, I drove across the Rainbow Arch Bridge to Ontario to see the Niagara Falls sights. It's really something to see!

I do like hot dogs, and the Northeast is big hot dog country; I have several hot dog places on the agenda for the next two weeks. I visited Ted's Hot Dogs in Amherst (Buffalo) for dinner today. Ted's has been cooking up charcoal hot dogs for 76 years, and they were really good. The onion rings were also great, and I enjoyed my first Loganberry drink.

Sorry, Buffalo folks, but Buffalo has to be the ugliest city in America after Detroit. I met Randy at a gas station, Jerry at Ted's Hot Dogs, Jessica at Canadian Immigration, and Kelly at the hotel in Batavia.

I called it a day in Batavia, New York as the Jello Museum is near here (but closed at 4 pm), and I just couldn't pass it by. I'll start the day with J-E-LL-O in the morning.

The Daily Journal of Round America:

Each day, we collect our thoughts on a web page just like this. We drop in some of the photos from the day. Our goal with the Daily Journal is to write about the towns we visit, the sights we see, the people we meet, and the pie we eat. We write about where we are, where we've been, and where we are going, but we also make observations about what we've seen and done as well as about life in general.

You can follow our travels from the Daily Journal section of this web site. Other pages of interest include the running report of "vital statistics" on the Trip Scorecard, our nominations for the Best & Worst of the trip, as well as a rating of the pie we eat. If you'd like to see information for a specific state or town, click here, and then click on the state of interest and the full itinerary is shown.