(no subject)

Our errands completed, we departed Rochester yesterday, aiming unurgently Southward with no particular route selected. On East River Road we were waylayed by Rudy (rudyblog) for one last farewell. We followed the Genesee south to Pennsylvania under an aerial escort of geese in a V.

Noted: "Tired Iron Tractor Museum" in Cuylerville, Livingston County, near Geneseo, New York.

Noted: "Bed, Breakfast, and Plane ride," a victorian farm house with a single-engine propeller plane squeezed into the carriage house but without a defined runway to be seen.

Crossed into Pennsylvania on US-219 and had dinner (chicken, biscuits, and gravy) in Bradford PA, a motor oil town and apparently the home of Zippo lighters.

Pittsburgh provided us a grand entrance on I-79 with glittering lights of the city and many grand bridges. My previous visit to Pittsburgh had been to visit Carnegie Mellon University as a prospective student; my memory of the city is as a dismal, gothic one, presided over by the ridiculous and terrifying Cathedral of Learning.

This time Pittsburgh gave a different impression: a bright and sparkling city with intriguing loft spaces and zesty neighborhoods. Heather, a friend from Ant Hill Co-op, took us in for the night and showed us around Bloomfield. In the morning we dined with my college friend Brandon, and then we were off on the highway again, the Pennsylvania Turnpike in a raging snowstorm. We would have liked to stay longer. Pittsburgh has much to offer; Heather purportedly prefers it to Portland.

* * *

We've been taken in by some friendly folks in Harrisonburg, Virginia. Tomorrow: Shenandoah, Floyd, Roanoke?