Sarturday, July 17, 2021- Anna's 21st Birthday and on to Petersburg

      It's a big year for us.  It's our 30th wedding anniversary, and we wanted to go somewhere special.  It's also the year that Emma graduated from high school and turns 18, the year that Anna turns 21, and the year that the COVID restrictions are lifting so that Abby gets a chance to meet the rest of the world.  Still, we've got a huge trip that we're planning and paying for this December to Disney World, so while we're itching to do something this summer, we do have to keep it under control.  While we were considering our options, we stumbled on a perfect idea-- We would revisit our old stomping ground in Petersburg, Virginia, with a side trip to a few of our favorite places around Williamsburg.  Hopefully, it would be a meaningful trip, but not too expensive.

     The day began with Julie and Emma making an appearance at a baby shower for one of Julie's colleagues while Scott worked on some of the packing.  Today is actually Anna's 21st birthday, and we couldn't let that go unnoticed.  She can't go on the trip with us because of her job, so we had lunch with her today.  The original plan was to eat at Pearl Street Grill, but driving downtown, we found that the Blue Jays were scheduled to play today.  They didn't end up playing today because of the rain, and they are only scheduled to have about five more games in Buffalo, but their presence was jacking up the parking prices.  We decided to eat at the Texas Roadhouse out on Union Road near the Galleria.  Anna was surprised and probably both pleased and disappointed that she didn't get carded.   We made sure that the waitress knew it was her 21st birthday though, and we all had a laugh when the staff brought over a saddle on what looked like a saw horse.  Anna had to sit on it while everyone in the restaurant said "Yee-haw."  We had a good time and the food was excellent.  We had never eaten there before but we would definitely go back.

     We dropped Anna off and went back to our house to finish packing the car, but while we were there we heard that the were tornado warnings in Springville and Cattaraugus County.  (Considering we were on our way back to Petersburg, news of tornados seemed somehow appropriate.  The big one hit Petersburg the weekend after we moved there in 1993.)  We had some trouble getting in touch with Scott's folks, so we decided we should stop in and make sure everything was all right.  We had left Abby with Julie's folks during lunch because she can be fidgety in restaurants, so after lunch we grabbed our luggage from home, picked her up, and were on our way. When we got to Springville, the storm had passed, though it was still raining.  Everything was fine at Scott's parents' house except for a little water in the basement.  However, there was a road closure on Genesee Road on our way there, and Buffalo Street was flooded by the park.  

     We headed south without too much incident. There was rain here and there much of the way down, but the worst of it was over by the time we reached Ellicottville. It was fun to see what turns we remembered versus what the GPS was telling us to do.  Abby was pretty good in the car and slept for part of the way.  She got a bit of a stretch at the Burger King in St. Mary's.  By the time we were approaching Beford, PA, we decided we should probably call it a night.   Julie felt defeated because she had hoped to make it to Virginia today, but considering we got a much later start than we expected, we didn't do bad.  We figure there's about four hours to drive until we reach Petersburg tomorrow.