Ramada by Wyndham Painted Post Corning

304 S Hamilton St, Painted Post, NY, US;

+1-607-962-5021

Ah, how to squeeze a bit more daylight into a day.   Maybe if I had bustled a bit more in the morning, I could have had another half an hour.  Maybe another hour from 5 to 6 pm, but that still would not have been enough time to make it back home.  Even if I had saved 43 minutes by going on I-90 instead of the Southern Tier. 

It was pretty easy to leave the Quality Inn in Van Wert, go a few hundred yards up the road and onto to the ramp for rt 30.  I let Waze guide me and I lost an hour or so on rt 224, but maybe that was no loss since it was almost like an interstate highway anyway.  So I took I-30, then I-71, then I-271, or was one of those 1's a 4?  I could check on the map.  So from Van Wert, I went toward Akron and then switched roads and went toward Erie PA where I got on I-86 east and finally off the crowded interstate that I was getting so tired of.  I realized when I didn't run into rush hour traffic that today is Columbus Day - a holiday - so that was a bit of a help.  Even so, the drive to Erie was full of semis and lanes of cars passing, and doing inconsiderate things to fellow drivers.

I stopped once for gas and got coffee there.  Then I stopped a second time at a rest stop where I ate my lunch of extras I snatched from breakfast - a Greek blueberry yogurt and a pretty horrible Danish pastry.  Oh, I did make a third stop, where I drove down a country road until I found someplace to add a quart of oil to the car.  There was a restaurant there - out in the boonies - with nothing else around it.   There was a parking lot with holes in it and no cars, but I could smell the grease from the deep fryer.

Just before Corning-Painted Post, there was a Text Stop, where I checked accommodations for the night.  I tried Corning and got a few places.  Then I tried Elmira but they were considerably more expensive.  I was torn with the idea of camping....I really want to camp because the weather is still warm....and dry, but I let myself talk myslef out of it, mainly because there is 12 hrs of darkness - or non-driving hours - that I need to stay in the camp and there is only so much I can do....or sleep....in those 12 hrs.  If I could have had a campfire, it would be better because then there would be something to do....stare into the flames.  That is, if campfires are allowed and there is no risk of forest fires here.

So the minor drama for today was my search for dinner.  I thought my problem was solved when the desk clerk told me about Jelly Beans the restaurant across the street - that was highly recommended, only, when I walked there, not open.   So I hopped in the car, hoping to find some take-out food before it got really dark.  I went to the shopping mall - home depot, walmart, verizon, appleby's.  Maybe I should have tried appleby's.  Then I drove past the motel in the other direction....only to find nothing.  So I drove back to the Ramada, parked the car, and walked to the nearest gas station.  I had thought I was homeward bound and through with gas station food, but, no.  I asked the attendant what would be good to eat for dinner.  He started listing what foods they had available....with no recommendations.  He showed me the sandwich list on the computer order screen and virtually did my order for me, gave me a bill.  Then he went to the register and I paid for it.  Then he proceeded to make it and I made a MacMeal of it with fries and a root beer.  The fries were actually pretty good.  I didn't manage to get any ketchup but they were tasty enough without it.  So I survived what should have been the last meal of my trip and turned out to be the second to the last....let's hope!!