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We stopped two times on our way to Pittsburgh. This meant our 4-hour drive took us only 6 hours. We were pleased. (Six months ago our 7-hour drive to D.C. took 13--very demoralizing.)
Our first stop was at a big, grungy truck stop, where we parked in a spot restricted to those parking no more than 6 hours (we were hoping to stay not much more than 6 minutes). It was uneventful, except for the tantrum David started to throw about a $27 model tow truck we were not going to buy him. Luckily, we were able to avert a full-blown emotional eruption, but, since David almost never throws tantrums, it unnerved me a little, and I took it as a bad omen. (It wasn't.)
Our second stop was at a pleasant new Target in Wheeling, West Virginia. The kids and I picked up a Father's Day gift for their dad, and Greg found a map of Pittsburgh. We concluded the pit stop sitting on bar stools, munching cinnamon-sugar pretzels, and happily watching an excavator in action at the construction site next door. That's about as good as it gets for this little family. Even if the rest of the trip turned out to be a total disaster, at least we would always have Target!
Arriving in Pittsburgh is actually quite dramatic. The terrain suddenly becomes hillier, and you pass under a couple of fascinating big, old, deteriorating steel railway bridges--a glaring announcement about where you have come and what used to be. Soon you're speeding through a tunnel that shoots you onto a bridge and, suddenly, without warning, there you are--in Pittsburgh! And it's beautiful! It's this wonderful city of hills and rivers and bridges, of water and trees and shiny tall buildings, of train tracks and stadiums and rusty old mills.
(I never ever associated Pittsburgh with beauty, but now I know better.)
