Basilica Adventure: August 18, 2015

BASILICA Adventure: August 18, 2015 My cousin Becky has been wanting to go to the OUR LADY OF VICTORY Basilica in Lackawanna for quite some time. Today was the day. She met me at my house this morning and we headed out the Transit, south towards Buffalo. After finding parking, we entered the front door of the Basilica. We were wandering around looking at the beautiful carvings of The Stations of the Cross when we ran into a worker who suggested we pick up a brochure that tells everything that a guide would tell us. Here are some pictures:

I think this was my favorite: The Grotto.

Father Nelson Baker is interned below the Grotto. We went downstairs to the Father Baker Museum. It is really well designed and tells the story of his life and his ministries, as well as how the basicila came to be.

Father Baker saved many children from death and starvation by starting an orphanage. I wanted to return to the sanctuary for one more look around, so we did. Then we got the car and started to look for THE MESS HALL, a restaurant I learned about on tripadvisor.com last evening. It turned out that we could have walked to it from the basicila.

We enjoyed our lunch there. Then I suggested that we find a geocache before leaving Lackawanna. We found it behind a thrift store. Then we went inside the store and met the store owner (who is also the cache owner). Becky found a hip pack and purchased it.

We decided to take a different route back to Lockport, Route 62. It took us through the eastern part of Buffalo, until we finally came to Route 325, which we turned on. It took us (more or less) to the transit.