Fusty Professors, coffee, and armchairs.

c. David Grim (taken 6/18/10)

Greetings from the road. As I type, I'm sitting in a coffeehouse in Clarion called Michelle's Cafe. As far as college town joints go, this is a nice place to grab an espresso. It's a very large space with high ceilings (tin), old fashioned wood paneling running two thirds up the wall, natural wood floor, amazing antique book cabinets, great-looking wall lamp treatments made from tea pots (see accompanying image), and comfy old armchairs. It's like chilling in a fusty professor's marvelous study... but with a selection of fairly intriguing children's art on the wall. In other words, the type of comfy ambiance that keeps me nursing my Americano til closing.

The recommendation of the bookstore proprietor across the street (Book Nook) was enough for me. When you come across a guy who is willing to sit in his shop at the end of the day and discuss local oddities to photograph, then you know you have found a quality source for local information, and your decision to check out the local university is reinforced once again. As the man says, we make our own fun here in Clarion. And so we did. GF has found a comfy armchair to read her newly-bought comics, and I get access to wifi.

We drove into the area around Cook Forest earlier today, and after a few inadvertent diversions, found our lodging for the weekend. I believe I'll blog about those particular accommodations once I form some definite impressions and get some appropriate images. Aside from that, it's been a mellow day. I suggested that we take a drive to Tionesta, insisting we had never been there, and speculating that it would be a charming little town with a place to sit and grab coffee. I was right about that "little town" part, and that's all. We realized pretty quickly why we had forgotten driving through that hamlet last summer.

Anyway, I hope y'all did something fine on this sunny-assed day.