With the Meadville Sign Art Installation Project now under our belt, we pointed the QED van North toward Erie to meet our man with the wacky front yard full of giant dinosaurs.  On the way we finally got to Wegman’s (see pic in below post) and while we were eating a quick lunch in the store my cousin Mike Cizmek, who lives in Erie just happened to walk in.  We chatted a bit and he told us about how a talent scout who saw one of his sons in our documentary, “Eat Pennsylvania” was cast in a horror movie called “Fist of the Vampire!”  Kooky!  Needless to say his young son won’t be able to even see the movie until he’s over 17.  Mike then gave us quick directions to the house we were looking for and we met Ross Peters in his driveway next to his T-Rexs’ towering over the front corner of his lawn.  We spent the next few hours learning how he built his “sculptures” by hand using steel, rebar, wire mesh and hand-applied concrete.  The tricertops has been standing for 40 years, so I guess it’s a pretty permanent way to build a huge lawn ornament. 

After trekking across Mr. Peters’ yard of interesting creatures, we drove up to Lakeview: View on the Lake (redundant I know) to shoot a quick intro for the story with a view of the lake behind us, and all I can say about that is yuck!   

The smell coming off Lake Erie was so gross it almost made us hurl.  But Frank in his infinite wisdom assured us that if something stinks, in 10 minutes you won’t notice it anymore.  Sadly, we still noticed… but we shot our intro anyway.  Off to Wikes-Barre… a mere 5 hour drive!  – Dave H

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