Travel, Day 3: New York State to Pennsylvania

Lake Erie on the horizon

 Today we traveled to Erie, Pennsylvania and yes, stayed in another Walmart parking lot.  This time, the first one I contacted did not welcome overnight stays so we had to drive down the road to another that did.  We waited until we got to the second one to make purchases. And good golly, they had truly awesome fried chicken and turtle brownies!  The cat, the dog, and the two humans went to bed with bellies filled with chicken and chocolaty goodness.

Behind the store I discovered a perc pond and trees filled with starlings who were just settling down for the night.  There was little traffic and no other rvers or tractor trailers in the parking lot and it seemed like it would be a quiet night.  Then I saw the flocks of starlings break from the trees and whirl around the sky in frantic spirals.  A moment later, a train came barreling through just a few hundred feet from where we'd parked our trailer.  And then, overhead, the birds were joined with the roar of a plane taking off.  Despite the noise, it was a fairly tranquil resting spot for the night.  I slept through the train and plane noise. 

It was cold enough to turn on the furnace again.  Unfortunately, it wouldn't stay lit so we had to resort to our backup heat source: a Little Buddy heater.  In just a few minutes, the trailer was toasty.

We woke in the morning to the rich aroma of cooking fried chicken.  I took the dog out for his morning pee and he dragged me across the parking lot toward the Walmart, making a bee-line for the source of the lovely, lovely aroma.  I could imagine a thought bubble above his head:  "Chicken, chicken, chicken, chicken....gotta get me some of that chicken."