Honored at an Ox Roast
By Denise Janus

We canoed 11 miles on French Creek from Saegertown to Meadville.  We saw a lot of bald eagles in flight, and around one bend of the creek we saw a deer dart away. Its accompanying fawn just sat there and stared at us through the foliage with its big curious ears fully tuned in on us!  I snapped my fingers and it finally bounded away.  After we got off the water we felt pretty icky so we took showers at a local foundry, courtesy of Mr. Dan Higham, president of the Crawford County Historical Society.  Thank you Mr. Higham for letting us use the showers at your foundry!

We made our presentation at the Bessemer Building — an Atlantic and Great Western railroad station — what a beautiful building!  We shared our program with Mr. Mark Gorman, and we really want to thank him for informing us of the ecological significance of the French Creek!

At 6 p.m. we headed back to Bicentennial Park for an ox roast put on by Ms. Anne Stewart of the Crawford County Historical Society.  We want to thank Ms. Stewart for being our key contact for our Meadville visit and for heading up the wonderful roast that we had, and thank you to all the helpers of the Crawford County Historical Society and to everyone that came!  We are floored by your graciousness and hospitality, it means so much!  All of the food was spectacular and the cake was beautiful, with its Robert Griffing painting and “Welcome to Meadville!” message.  How sweet!  After stuffing ourselves and mingling well into the evening, we turned in to ready ourselves for another day of paddling the creek!