Into Appalachia

Pete and I left the Nationals park with 21 miles of gas left in our tank, which seemed like a great idea at the time because honestly we were just trying to get the hell out of dodge. D.C. was cool, but crowded, especially after the game, and we had some driving to do to cut time out of next day's drive to Pittsburgh. The tricky part was we had to drive past Great Falls National Park on the way out, meaning there were no gas stations this side of the Potomac. Did we cut it close? Ah, well, you could say we were within 1 mile(s) of running the Mustang clear out of petrol, but luckily, we took a shot in the dark on "Democracy Way" 20 miles outside of town, and were still alive to tell the tale.

Fueled by the recent adrenaline of a near "out of gas" experience, we sped out into a misty Western Maryland and finally crashed at a "Sleep In" vaguely near Gettysburg, and also few miles from the state correctional facility. Suffice it to say, we were a little creeped out. The lady working front desk at 1 am had no sense of humor when we asked her how many inmates were staying at the motel that night.


Next morning we had our second Waffle House experience, hopped back on the road and wound our way back into Pennsylvania, straddling the Maryland-West Virginia border nearly the whole time, but never quite seeing the road sign necessary to count WV an official state in the trip. The country was sunny and green, so we put the top down and sped through some hilly back roads (cue Peter Gabriel's "Solsbury Hill").


Actually, we drove so fast our peanut bag flew out of the convertible and kindly deposited what remained in the back seat.




We stopped at Falling Water, the Frank Lloyd Wright house built in 1934 over a pair of waterfalls, deep in the forest. Every one else on our tour was as old as the house, but we had a fun time exploring. The house is a masterpiece.


By the afternoon we cruised into a warm and trafficy downtown Pittsburgh, dropped our stuff at the William Penn Hotel and went out for the Pimanti Bros. sandwiches: huge and meaty with coleslaw and fries packed in--just another example of how we were willing to let our digestive systems suffer for the sake of must-eat classics.