Olean

And it’s Ho! And off to a part of the valley of the beautiful Allegheny River that makes its way along the border between Pennsylvania and New York states. If only all borders were as peaceful as this …

We drove along the road that runs south of the river between 1st street and Union street. Trite phrases line my lips as lush vegetation lines the bank.

We are looking north here; the river is making its way from the right to the left of this photo.

In the centre of the photo small bubbles of foam are evident; there must be a bridge a little ways upstream; there’s enough current to create foam in eddies around the pilings.

Looking downstream, from the same spot. The river rounds the bend and the water continues on its journey through Pittsburgh, down the Ohio river, along the Mississippi and into The Gulf Stream, thence to Scotland and Scandinavia.

Looking upstream from the same spot; some of this water has come from Coudersport in northern Pennsylvania .

And so into the main intersection in town.

The eight-storey building dominates the skyline, for the intersection is on the top of the rise.

Cars turning left, around the building, will head North up highway 16 back to highway 400 and Buffalo. Cars turning right will cross the Allegheny river and end up in Florida.

What a grand old structure this is.

This is a view westwards along highway 417. The yellow truck has as likely as not come from Salamanca.

A zoom shot of the one above; the hills in the background are part of what is called “The Southern Tier” by New Yorkers; Pennsylvanians call them “The Northern Tier’.

To the best of my knowledge this is the only 7-eleven store in the United States of America to boast twin spires.

You can get stuff like large cans of soft drink here for a dollar, but you’ll pay $1.12 on account of the taxes, a lot like Ontario.

One shop clerk told us that there are varying taxes at the county and state levels as you go across the USA; I don’t doubt it.

The blue prime mover has the tall building on its right. Highway 417 continues east into the background; the prime mover will head south (his left) once the lights change.

The mass of trees are part of a large well-groomed public park.

To the right of the photo a part of another large building pokes its way in; more of that in the next image.

Here is a part of that large building. Two buildings actually. I think it is a U.S. Post Office.

The big yellow Universal Transport has made is way up the hill, past me. It too is waiting for the lights to change.

I am unsure of the buildings original or current function; it was, maybe, the old library. A new library has been built just a block or two north of highway 417 and a block or two east of highway 16.

At any rate, it looked to me as if those large windows had been bricked close for many years.

And so to the highlight of the building trip.

If you ever feel like building a combine harvester from scratch, Worth W. Smith is the place to come. In 50-plus years of wandering around hardware stores and building suppliers, I’ve never seen a place like this.

The building was a factory, but is now a well-ordered maze of aisles of material ranging from square-section construction steel (for the framework of the combine harvester) through a huge range of gear wheels, pulley wheels, drive chains and belts, through multiple aisles of nuts, screws, washers and bolts.

If you want a solid hexagonal wrench with a two-inch head (that’s a bolt head two inches across the flat edges), they have quite a few here; also one-and-seven-eights, also one-and-three-quarters, ad reductio, if I can say that.

Once you have finished building your combine harvester you can paint it, lubricate it, and wipe away any excess lubricant with a variety of cleansers.

Sadly I forgot about the specially-shaped pads I wanted to glue under the coffee-table legs.

I’ll just have to go back …

Here is a view down the eastern end of the old factory building.

That stack of ladders is chained to the store rack, but you can buy bolt-cutters in a variety of sizes, all the way up to a set that are too heavy to lift and must be used on the floor.

I’m sure the staff would help you lug them out to your pickup truck. (We were the only car in the lot when we pulled in!)

It helps that if you come outside for a breather you get a great view of the Southern Tier which surrounds the town of Olean.

It reminds me very much of Terrace British Columbia, although there they have four-thousand-foot mountains surrounding the town.

Lotsa ladders.

I promise not to make a joke about how, when they sell a ladder, they have rung up a sale.

The lighted window in the foreground is in the north-eastern corner of the building.

Here is a view from the north-eastern corner running along the back wall, the northern face.

Inside the store the aisles are numbered: 1, 2, 3 and so on, and then further subdivided (because of their length) as 1A, 1B, 1C and so on.

The help staff wear microphones and head sets to communicate enquiries to the two sweet ladies at the front desk; who dispense free popcorn and possibly (I didn’t ask) free coffee.

Here’s a shot of Betty taking a photo of the Beef ‘N Barrel restaurant. We’ve eaten their twice now. Great food, friendly service, and a decent price – typically $25 for the two of us.

The Beef ‘N Barrel is on the east side of highway 16, about a hundred yards north of highway 417.

Parking appears to be free after 5 p.m. weekdays, but I think they have a parking lot out the back.

Olean has a cruddy little mall with a not-cruddy Kohl’s and BonTon if you need to stock up on summer clothes for a Caribbean Cruise this winter.

The mall itself is clean, but is rather small and limited in store variety.

We set off up highway 16 North; I can’t resist taking a shot of the lovely hills.

Look in the rear-view mirror: there’s nothing behind me for a long way.

And so into Cuba.

One of these days I must build a web page with photos of aircraft mounted on or near buildings.

This helicopter glorifies the VFW Post 2721 in Cuba

Cuba (and Belfast) didn’t offer a lot in the way of lunch places, so we moved on …

… To Warsaw, so glad we did.

Here just west of the intersection of highway 20A with highway 19 we found the Silverlake restaurant .

I’m standing outside the restaurant; extra parking across the street.

The facility is being renovated, and therein lies a story.

I heard two ladies entering commenting “My it looks different!”, so I looked around and sure enough, besides being bright and spacious, the walls and furniture were pristine.

I asked Debbie-the-Waitress when the area in which we were sitting had been renovated. “Not since I started here twenty years ago”, she said.

Huh? The unrenovated section is brighter, cleaner etc than most restaurants cafes and diners I’ve eaten in over the past twenty years.

If they keep the dining area in such fine fettle, I bet the food preparation area is hygienically clean, too.

Highway 20A runs east-west across this part of the state; some heavy truck traffic is to be expected.

The rig headed westwards along 20A, coming towards us, has just negotiated the intersection with Highway 19.

The tower/spires of three churches can be seen in this photo; two are evident, but can you spot the third?

The hills, as always, make a pleasing background everywhere you look.

And a quick look at Oatka creek which, in the part of Warsaw, is an ugly concrete-lined canal.

Judging by the rocks in the creek-bed, it gets quite a current from time to time. Probably the sudden flow after a heavy rain storm in the surrounding hills upstream.

But check out the plant growth each side of the creek; this must be a nesting ground and haven for a wide variety of wildlife, from rabbits downwards (in size!).

One couldn’t canoe this, but I bet it makes for a good wading field-study trip for budding biologists and botanists.

Here’s a not-so-good view of the creek bed. I forgot about the sun …

A close-up of the bank; you can almost hear the rustlings of tiny creatures …

And so out of town, up the hill, a series of hills, really, switchbacks, with each uphill stretch taking us higher than its preceding downhill stretch.

I read the notice on the truck and suggested we do what it said; at least, I said, we could double back to the Silverlake for another slice of pie, but my passenger put her foot down and advised me not to do the same.

And here we are, sadly, back at the border, the Peace Bridge at Fort Erie.

We are in a line-up of cars.

The cars to our right, lined up waiting to cross, have this Nexus thing which speeds up their crossing.

They still have a lineup, but.

For the life of me I couldn’t figure out this gantry.

It is huge, and looks like some kid raided the Meccano warehouse for the love of girders.

Six cables (electrical?) run across the top and out the other side, but why so much structure? What’s wrong with using the common garden-variety of four-legged pylons.

Stairs rise the three (count ‘em!) levels of maintenance platforms.

Odd, but when you enter the U.S.A. the kiosks are surmounted with colorful flags of the states of the U.S.A. You are entering the United States, see, and there are fifty of them, flags-all-a-waving-welcome.

But when you enter Canada you get a couple of thirty-inch high red plastic maple leafs that weren’t selling too well in the souvenir shop.

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