July 21 - Adventure in PA
2:47 a.m. || 07.27.03

Monday, July 21st Today we woke up sorta late, a lot later than we wanted to. I checked the weather, cause I was still a little nervous about driving down to Holly�s if it was going to storm, cause they can get bad storms down there, but I said screw it, and decided to go. We left around 1pm, got gas and headed out. Holly lives in Pennsylvania, right over the NY/PA border, so it wasn�t gonna take too long to get to her house.

When we left it was raining, but we drove out of the rain, and it wasn�t too bad of a drive down. We got into PA shortly before 3pm, and Holly�s directions were great. It was really easy to get to her house. Basically, it was like �get off this exit, go all the way to the top of the hill, turn left, go to the bottom of the hill, and my house is on the left�. But Holly gave them using MUCH more detail than that. You�d never guess she was only 14 (15 in a little over a week). My sister cant find her way around Lockport sometimes, and we have lived there (in the same house) all of our lives.

When we pulled into her driveway, her dog Alice came up to greet us, and Holly and her mom came out. I�ve met Holly�s mom before, and she gave me a big hug and made a few �hick jokes�. Apparently Holly had told her about the ongoing �hick jokes� her and Andy throw at each other over the internet. We went inside and talked for awhile, Holly showed us around her house and then we tried to think of some things to do. Holly�s mom used to work for Zippo, and she suggested we check out the Zippo Museum, so we decided on that, and whatever else we thought of along the way. It had started to POUR by then, so we ran to the car and we were on our way, but not before the power went out completely.

On the way down to Bradford (back DOWN the hill), we were driving along, and all of a sudden I slammed on the brakes. There was a little river blocking our road!! It really wasn�t TOO bad, but we don�t get flooding like that around my area, and I wasn�t too keen on driving through it. So, I let a few people go around me and the on-coming traffic came through as well. I figured if I drove on the other side of the road, it was more shallow, so I did, and we were fine. We came across many more spots like that on our way down to Bradford, and it made me a little nervous. The water on the road was never REALLY deep, but still. I didn�t really like it.

When we got down to the Zippo Museum, it was still raining, so we quick ran inside. The place was pretty cool. There were designs (including a HUGE American flag) made completely out of different Zippo lighters, and this machine, like a gum ball machine, (the kind they make now with ramps and lights and whistles) and it was HUGE!! It was really cool to watch the balls zoom through the mazes and see what paths they would take. The thing mesmerized us for quite awhile. There is a pic and stuff about it on the Zippo webpage I linked awhile back� check it out! It was almost 5pm by then, and the Museum was closing, so we decided to leave.

Trying to get back to Holly�s house turned out to be quite an ordeal. First she wanted to show us their mall, so we tried to go one way, and got stuck in a line of cars. There was a power line down ahead, so we had to get back on the highway. We drove to another section of Bradford, got off the highway, and got stuck in ANOTHER line of cars. We waited for 15 minutes or so, and then made the left on our way to the mall. It�s a good thing we were making a left, cause they wouldn�t let us go straight, which, unfortunately, was the way back to Holly�s house. Well, their �mall� wasn�t really a mall, but a strip of stores, like 3 or 4. Not even a �strip mall� really. When we got into the mall parking lot, we drove around (there was a huge lake in the middle of it from all the rain) and noticed some cars parked over by the river, which went under the parking lot. We went over and parked by them, and I grabbed my camera. The river was flooded and almost over the parking lot!! We look pictures, which I will post below. We watched the river for awhile, and then decided to go. We left the mall and then Holly suggested we go see WalMart, which was right across the street. We drove into the parking lot, and instantly noticed the lack of cars in the parking lot. As we got closer to the store, we noticed how there were a lot of employees standing around outside, and as we got closer to the doors, we noticed why. They had no power!! We then figured out that was why the strip mall was so emtpy too. We left WalMart and drove down past Burger King and the skating ring, and noticed that the lots there were absolutely flooded (by the same river that went under the mall parking lot). There was a guy walking, and the water was over his knees. We looked for a bit, then I went straight through the light (where the street going up the hill was blocked), turned around and came back through. I pulled out my camera, handed it to Andy, who was in the passenger seat, and asked him to take pictures, which he did. We turned around again, and then headed back to Holly�s. We had to get back into the huge line of traffic, since we couldn�t go up the hill to go back to Holly�s, get back on the highway, and come back up the same way we had come to go to the Zippo Museum. The road was pretty clear by then, as it had stopped raining, there was just a lot of debris, like sticks and mud and stuff.

When we got back to Holly�s, the power had just recently come back on, and we told her mom about our adventure in Bradford. We showed her the pictures, and she told us how Holly�s dad had called and said there was a little tornado where he worked, and also how there was a tornado in Coudersport, which isnt too far away. (Note: That tornado turned out to be an F3 tornado, extremely rare in our area, and did a tremendous amount of damage to a historic structure, the Kinzua Viaduct). The weather was a little better by then, and we all, except Holly�s brother, decided to go out to dinner.

We we ended up going to this pizza place, and basically had to wait forever to get our food. First, it took quite awhile to get a waitress to notice us (the restaurant section we were in was NOT particularly busy) and then when we ordered, it took even MORE time to get our drinks. Holly�s mom�s hamburger was brought out long before our food, and finally, after she went up and said something, we got our food. Andy, who ordered his with extra cheese, and no pepperoni, got pepperoni and hardly any cheese. They fixed it, sorta (I think the just picked off the pepperoni, put more cheese on, and stuck it back in the over, since they fixed it EXTREMELY fast, yet it took over an hour to get it in the first place). Mine hardly had any cheese on it either, but that was fine by me. We ate and then got going back to Holly�s as it was getting late.

When we got there, we talked for a bit more, and then left, shortly after 9pm. It was quite dark by then, and I was really nervous about driving, especially cause it was still raining at times, and it was lightning. We had to drive through the mountains, and I was afraid to come across more flooded roads. It turned out okay though, and the roads dried up. We talked all the way back and never turned on the radio. Mostly because of my nervousness though. During the trip, I had gotten an email from Lissy, and she said how she had not had a good day, but had gotten the monkey I sent her (I also made her a monkey at Build-A-Bear Workshop) and was so happy about that. So, we decided to call her, and we talked for awhile on speaker phone so we could all talk. She told us about her day and the monkey, and we talked a bit more about our friend Mark and the nasty diary entry his friend Sherry wrote about all of us. We are all pretty much fed up with the situation. After awhile Lissy had to go, she wanted to try to sleep, and we kept driving. When we got up in Buffalo, it had started to rain more, but we were back in familiar territory then, so it wasn�t too bad.

When we got home, we decided to go to Blockbuster and check our their movies, but I forgot our Blockbuster is dumb and they close at 11. So we kept driving and saw some flashing lights from police cars, so we kept driving to check it out. There were two police cars and they had some people in handcuffs, so we figured it was something pretty bad. (Note: I found out today it was 4 teenagers, pulled over for driving erratically, and the cops found 17 bags of crack cocaine and marijuana in their car. Oops!). After driving back around, we went to Tops, but I cant really remember what for� After Tops, we came home and watched Blackhawk Down, but fell asleep pretty early into the movie. We woke up after awhile and got into bed. We were pretty tired and I had a doctors appointment the next day we had to be up for�

Burger King

river between BK and skating rink

front of skating rink

river by mall parking lot (angle #1)

river by mall parking lot (angle #1)

river by mall parking lot (angle #2)- notice the people in the background looking at BK  LOL

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