Erie, PA- Friday, August 8, 2025

    We got up and enjoyed a hotel breakfast.  Then Abby was anxious to get back into what is now her favorite pool.  The water was much warmer this morning-- like bathwater.  We guessed that maybe when all of the fountains and splashing things are turned on during the day, they cool the water down, but when they're turned off at night, the pool has a chance to heat back up.  Whatever is the case, Mom, Dad and Abby went back in the pool while Emma slept in.

    After we checked out of the hotel, we went to the Millcreek Mall.  We didn't buy much.  Emma got sticker shock from looking at the price of a yellow lab puppy.  Abby got a new pair of sneakers for when kindergarten starts, though she wore them the rest of the day.

    We were all getting hungry and we made our way through the traffic (that seemed extra-heavy today, probably due to construction detours) and went to Quaker Steak and Lube.  It was not a great experience this time.  The place seemed mostly empty, but they didn't have enough servers on duty and we had to wait 20 minutes to get a table.  Even when we were seated we the service was very slow.  After she thought about it, she remembered we had a similar experience last time.  (It was August 1, 2024, and the blog entry for that day agrees with what she recalled.)   We're scratching Quaker Steak and Lube off our our list, but we'll see if we remember that next time.  Anyway, there are certainly a lot of other places we could choose from in the area.

    After spending such a long time waiting for lunch, we were all feeling pretty tired.  We stopped at DXL to get Scott some pants for school, but we didn't do as much school shopping as we had originally planned to do.  We had two more quick stops to make and then we'd head for home.

    A few weeks ago, on Last Week Tonight, John Oliver challenged minor league baseball teams to enter into an agreement with him wherein he could rebrand the team with the name of his choice.  Apparently they were flooded with applications from teams all over the country, including the Buffalo Bisons, but he settled on a re-brand for the Erie Seawolves.  He and his staff renamed them the Erie Moon Mammoths, after actual mammoth remains that were discovered by a man named George Moon.  They designed a whole new logo and mascot for them and the team first used the name at a game on July 19.  The tickets for the game immediately sold out or we would probably have gone.  John Oliver himself was there.  Anyway, Scott wanted to see if he could get some Moon Mammoth merchandise, so we went to the Seawolves team store.  The merchandise was almost sold out (though they are expecting more soon), but Scott did find a shirt he liked that also fit him, so he got that.

    Our last stop was at the Krispy Kreme shop to bring Anna back a dozen doughnuts that she asked for.  While we were there, Abby liked seeing the big machines where the doughnuts are made, though they weren't actually running at the time.  We got Anna's doughnuts (and a few for us, too), and made our way back home.  It's been a short vacation, but it was a good one.  Abby in particular wants to go back to that hotel again, and we probably will.