Mrs. Grandstander and I embarked on another "Retiree Adventure" this week with a three night stay at the Peek'n Peak Resort just outside of Findley Lake, NY. If you are not familiar with it, "The Peak" is a ski resort about 15-20 miles east of Erie, PA, about a two and quarter hour drive from our North Hills home. It had been about a dozen years or so since our last visit, so we decided to head back, and it was a great sojourn.
The resort has two golf courses. I chose to play the more High Handicap-friendly Lower Course.
I was successful in bringing the course to its knees as I carded a blistering 97 on the round. You can define "blistering" any way you choose. I define it as "anything under 100"!
After golf, we went poolside, where I rode down this bad boy:
The good news - it was a really fun. The bad news - well, let's just say that you should always check your bathing suit pocket to make sure your cell phone isn't in there BEFORE you go into a swimming pool. Oooops!
Walking back from dinner that night, I got this pretty neat picture of the moon over the Lower Course:
Now, you are probably wondering about that picture that appears at the right on the top of this post, so let me 'splain it to you. On Thursday, we drove into nearby Jamestown, NY to visit a museum dedicated to perhaps Jamestown's most famous native and her husband. Perhaps you've heard of them.
Jamestown established a Museum to honor Lucille Ball soon after her death in 1989. I believe that it was originally a "Lucille Ball Museum", but it is now, and has been since the mid-nineties, the "Lucy - Desi Museum" and honors Desi Arnez as well Lucy. As near as I can determine, but could not really confirm, this was done at the insistence of their children, Lucie Arnez and Desi Arnez, Jr. And why not? While Lucille Ball was clearly the star of "I Love Lucy", and later sitcoms as well, it was the innovative ideas regarding television production and the business acumen of Desi Arnez that helped make "I Love Lucy" the landmark television show that it was, and remains to this day. According to the Museum, "I Love Lucy" is still on television somewhere in the world every single day of the year.
Each summer, the Museum hosts the Lucy-Desi Festival for Comedy. Big time comedians come in to perform, there is a film festival, and it is a very big deal in the town of Jamestown. It looks like it is something that would be fun to attend some time. In 2011, the Festival produced an event that landed in the Guinness Book of World Records when over 900 people gathered in one place while dressed as Lucy Ricardo. How fun would that have been to see?
Finally, Jamestown also honors Lucy with huge murals on the sides of buildings throughout the town. Jamestown loves Lucy. Who doesn't? The Museum is certainly worth a visit if you are in the area.
On the trip back to The Peak from Jamestown we made several stops in the areas surrounding the beautiful Lake Chautauqua, including a Mayberry-like village called Bemus Point...
...as well as a stop and drive through the famous Chautauqua Institute. We pumped up the economy at several little shops pleasing to Mrs. Grandstander and had a great lunch a restaurant called Webb's Captain's Table, where I partook of a western New York specialty, a "Beef on a Weck". Delicious. We left Peek'n Peak at nine that morning and didn't get back until almost five o'clock. It was like a work day, only fun!
It was great trip, probably our last overnight excursion in 2013, so we made the most of it.
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