The First Day

Tuesday, July 3

Yesterday we accomplished our goal.  We drove 690 miles, actually a little more than we had planned.  Sometimes we make a reservation in advance and sometimes we decide along the way how we want things to "play out."  We were in Pittsburgh by 5:30 pm; JB actually stopped by his company's office there.  Now of course he's been there a lot before but he thought it might be kind of fun to leave a note on the window of one of the vehicles.  Instead of having the manuals for the course he is teaching shipped to Canada, he picked them up.  We were going right through this area so it made sense. 


We had a few bathroom and gas and scenery stops along the way but we kept busy in the car today doing some schoolwork; I played a game with some of the little ones; we read aloud from The Secret Garden; we are about 2/3 done with it so I brouight it along; we ate snacks and I fixed lunches in the car too.  We stopped at a Moe's for supper and somehow I fed everybody for $13.  It was Tuesday night of course, and even though they don't have buy one, get 2 free like in Mt. Pleasant, they did have $1 off special for any taco.  We should have paid $23 with the discount, but the register wouldn't let us pay for it at once.  Then the gal tried ringing up everything separately so I could pay 3 times for 3 sets of tacos but it still locked up on her.  The manager came over and when the subtotal before discounts was at $26 and he tried to put in the discount, it went down to $13.  At that point, he said, "just pay this, is that okay?"  So, we got $26 of funk meisters for $13 and of course plenty of salsa and water.



After eating, we drove through the mountain, into the tunnel and popped out into Pittsburgh.  JB of course knew what was coming and had everyone prepared to look as soon as we exited the tunnel.  I was amazed.  What a beautiful city.  You pop out of the mountain and there where the 2 rivers (one the Allegheny) come together to form the Ohio River, is the city.  I had no idea there would be so many bridges, one set called "The 3 Sisters".  I wish we could have explored some but we didn't want to get everyone to bed so late.  We were only about 30 minutes from where the Santorum Family lives in Penn Hills along the river.  It would have been so fun to stop and say "Hello".  But as we didn't think of this before now, it was too late to find out if they were even home.  So we went on to Erie, PA and spent the night.  JB got us a reservation while we were in line at Moe's and he was able to get us a room using points he accumulates while traveling.  He stays in Holiday Inn Express and even though we would rather have him at home rather than him travel sometimes, it is a blessing when we stay on the road for free and we have a filling hot breakfast the next day.

 It is about 9 pm when we pull in and everyone settles down fairly fast because we are all tired.  I was too exhausted to post; I had had 3 hours sleep the night befire so after nursing the baby, I slept hard and well until awakening this morning on the 4th of July at 7:30 am.

Quote of the Day: "Hey Mommy, Mommy, look at those coot [cute] birds, I just want to jump out and catch them."  ~~Jackson