Strange PA Trip – June 24
Cats: Strange Pennsylvania|Okay, it’s the second day of shooting and we’re already changing things up. Our mission was to just head to Erie to meet a guy with a bunch of big dinosaurs in his front yard and on the way stop at our favorite grocery store, Wegman’s so Frank & I could pick up some Fage yogurt, honey and nuts to go with our berries in the cooler for breakfast. Dave R ate the hotel complimentary rubber eggs n’at. But, that would not be how things worked out. We decided to revisit that Penn Dot/Allegheny College art installation in Meadville to find out more and make that a segment of the show since it was just so cool. So Dave R dropped Frank & I off to start shooting the length of the fence while he went inside to see if we could wrangle an official for an interview. Just as we began shooting we noticed a little beagle off in the distance close to the highway and we got him to come to us. His collar had a name, phone number and address. The name on the collar was “Bud Moody,” so we called the little fella “Bud.” Frank called the owner and let them know we had “Bud,” and we took him up to our van and fed him some Fage yogurt, pieces of a leftover baguette and some berries. He didn’t want the berries. Frank fashioned a leash out of a shoelace and a video cable and we tethered “Bud” to the back of the van with the hatch up for shade, poured him some water and began to interview a Penn Dot official close by so we could keep an eye on him. Midway through the interview Bud’s owner drove up and we bid our new friend a sad farewell. So just like it says “changing lives” on our van, we changed a small beagle’s life today! And the shoot turned out great. We stumbled across a team of college interns fabricating a pile of road signs into the next section of the fence, and the director of the project turned up as well. A very productive morning for sure.
-Dave H
