One of my friends moved back to the area in 2018 after being away for 17 years. Soon after her arrival, we began going on day trips, like we had done many times before she had moved away. I planned and drove and she trusted me to come up with something fun or entertaining, which wasn’t very difficult since she was easy to please. We decided to invite a few others to join us after we’d been on a couple outings.

I have always liked to plan surprises, yet I do not like to be surprised. Therefore, I made the decision to make the next outing a mystery day, with a morning and an afternoon activity. The stops I planned were to places I had hoped my friends had never been, including the lunch break. I put a post on Facebook that said “Who wants to go on a lame day trip? Keyword is lame.” After my explanation of what could be expected, two women expressed a desire to join us.

Our first stop was to Vidler’s 5 & 10 in East Aurora. We walked through every room in the store, starting in the basement, which we entered from the parking lot. We reminisced about the 5 & 10s we went to when we were kids and pointed out the toys and candies we remembered.

Since it was Easter week, our second stop was Buffalo’s Broadway Market, which has everything and more one might want for Easter Day except for church. We marveled at the varieties of sausages, hams and other cuts of meat we saw through the windows of the coolers belonging to various meat markets. The beautiful Easter plants and intricately decorated Ukrainian eggs wowed us. We were tempted by the aroma of freshly baked breads, cookies, pies, cakes and paczki along with large displays of chocolates. We found it interesting that city-dwellers actually bought pussy willows for the traditional Dyngus Day celebration. We walked buy every pierogi-selling lunch stand before we chose the counter where we would eat before leaving the huge market.

Salamanca’s Bill Steckman has lived his 97 years to the fullest and loves to tell about them, sometimes with a little embellishment, but always with humor.

Our last stop was at the original and only at that time, Made in America Store, which was located in Elma. There are now eight Buffalo area locations, but visiting a store where everything is made in this country was a rarity when we were there.

As time has gone by, I have started planning LDTs to the homes or businesses of the many interesting people I have met while interviewing for the Recipe Page. I rarely plan a shopping trip and lean more toward unique, entertaining or educational outings and sometimes come up with all three in one stop. Such was the case of the second LDT, a visit to Mr. Bill Steckman’s home.

I met Bill and his late wife, Anna, a few years before, after hearing about his moose antler carvings. Within 30 minutes of my arrival, I decided I was going to write two articles, beginning with the couple’s 90-year love story. The second would be about Steckman’s 40 plus years with the railroad, their talking dog who performed many times at local WT Grant Stores and their numerous trips to Nova Scotia, where he acquired some of his antlers. Before I left their home that day, I knew I had to do a third story about the camp the nonagenarian had built from materials he salvaged when taking down houses, train stations and other structures. The bridge leading to the camp, a mock two-story outhouse and a fence that surrounded the rural property were built by Steckman from the many telephone poles he acquired during the clearing of the site for the construction of Kinzua Dam. More than once, he has told me he lays awake at night planning what he can do next. Needless to say, the Lame Daytrippers have visited Bill at his home and at his camp.

On a September day later that year, we visited eight Jamestown mom and pop businesses that were in out of the way places and on the second and third floors of buildings we pass by every day. Few, if any, of these stops were known by my friends and one we learned about while we were out.

We’ve enjoyed touring a Clymer friend’s perfectly manicured gardens with 400 varieties of daylilies. While we were visiting the Collins home of Herb and June Cook, my friend told me we had to return with our husbands so they could meet the 90-year old Veteran and see his drivable Radio Flyer Wagon which was built on a Ford Ranger chassis. We returned with the husbands a few days later and they loved it.

Loujean White has the most beautiful gardens at her Clymer home.

Another outing was to Todd and Wanda Johnson’s Lottsville mini-mall, where they sell almost everything one needs or wants and if they don’t have it, Wanda will order it. Erie’s Kraus’ Department Store has anything Wanda doesn’t have jammed into 11,000 square feet. It has been owned by the same family since opening in 1888 and I’m proud to say the LDTs have been there!

Twelve women have come along over the years, but never more than five plus me on any one trip, even though I have offered to have my husband drive his vehicle for the overflow. I decided to make a list of who had been on each trip after we’d gone on a few outings. We usually take at least one picture, so it was easy to look back to see who had adventured with us. I started keeping track for a few reasons. One of those was the idea I could recycle some of the trips if the people on a later outing had not been to the places I had taken an earlier group, but so far have only repeated an LDT one time.

I often get comments as I run into people at out in the community or from Facebook friends telling me they want to come along one day. Oftentimes, I wish a certain person would go on a trip because one of the planned destinations would be some place I know they would enjoy, but because of the mystery tradition, I can only suggest they join us.

In recent years, I have started giving my husband my itinerary, because it seems like the smart thing to do. I do see the Lame Daytrippers texting as we go, causing me to believe they are telling a friend or family member where they are.

I have been told more than once that I have a way of putting people together and I chuckle each time. I laugh because I have no system. I just invite. The first compliment came after I invited a friend and her husband to sit around my backyard fire. Among the people sitting with us was a couple from next door, an elderly woman from whom I had recently purchased four cemetery lots, her 80-something sister, who was a retired missionary and a widower who worked at our local compacting station, better known as the dump. It was heartwarming to watch the octogenarian maiden lady get joy from roasting a hotdog and to hear the widower say two or three times that he was “going to roast one last marshmallow before I go.”

We had a great day visiting eight Jamestown businesses of which most of these Daytrippers knew not if their existence.

Half the fun of our trips is the time spent together while en route. Many LDT participants have become friends. That’s what happens when God brings the people together.

My friends think I affectionately call our outings Lame Day Trips, but truthfully, it is because no one can say they weren’t warned if they are duds!

Vidler’s 5 & 10 in East Aurora brought out the child in these original Lame Daytrippers.