2015-03-22 42 -80

Location

Corner of the Mill Creek mall complex

Participants

Pedalpusher

The Planning

This almost didn't happen. When the coords. came out for the weekend, I didn't see anything good(around the Buffalo graticule where I live) with a possibility of a chance in the Dunkirk Graticule(to the west) on Sunday. However, I didn't want to drive that far for it and was resigned to a hash-free weekend. Then I checked out the hashes again just to be sure; they didn't change to anything better, but I realized that the Sunday hash was in the SE corner and I have been waiting for one of these for a while now. I hopefully checked the Erie, PA graticule to see, not only was it on land, but in a public and easily accessible parking lot! Erie, PA was virgin and had very little land(on the US side) so I have had notifications on it for months now. I'll drive an hour and a half for this.

My next thoughts were how to make this more interesting. I considered a Tron, but the only direct routes back all cross each-other and to go another way would be WAY out of the way. However, that line of thinking brought me back to the Dunkirk Graticule and I re-considered. Google had a street-view with no Posted signs and it would only add an hour to my trip! This could work, although all my multi-hash and consecutive attempts have resulted in 'Not Reached' so far.

Expedition

Virgin Graticule expedition, Part 1. Part 2 can be found here

I was on the road a little after 11:00 and right before I got to the thruway, I realized I didn't have cash for the tolls. I made a quick turn into a bank and stopped at the ATM. Back on the road, I got my toll ticket and was heading SW around Lake Erie on I-90 toward Pennsylvania.

Right around Dunkirk/Fredonia, a Bald Eagle was flying over the road which was really cool to see. They are moving into our area along Lake Erie and the Niagara river.

Getting to the PA line, I paid my $2.85 toll and found my exit for Erie, PA about 30 minutes later. The directions were pretty easy to follow as I just had a few turns to get to the Mall complex. I made my way to the back corner by a few hotels and drove through the hash as I was parking right around 13:00. I hopped out, walked next to the dumpster and got a 0.00 reading pretty quick. No dancing required. I got a few pictures and was getting pretty hungry at this point so I decided to stop somewhere for lunch. Just outside the Mall complex opposite the hash, was Cheddar's which advertised itself as a Casual cafe experience(but was more like an Applebee's or TGI Friday's). I had a delicious Chicken Pot Pie and a Root Beer and then got ready to attempt the Dunkirk hash.

Note, a "Tale of Two Hashes" challenge is being issued for Erie, which I will probably complete quickly as I reside in Erie County in the Buffalo Graticule.