Across the heartland...

Mom and I went across Chicago, then across Indiana, across Ohio, and across northern Pennsylvania. There's no other way to describe it. You get to a state and just... cross it. Get across it. Not that the places were unpleasant, necessarily, just kind of tedious. Cleveland looked kind of nice, except it was pouring down rain the whole time. The farmlands were pleasant enough, and the hardwood forests here and there were quite pretty.

Finally we got to North East, Pennsylvania, a cute-as-a-button town with a large central square and a kind of cheesy Italian restaurant with good lasagna but horrific salads. We tried some local wine, which tasted like slightly sour grape juice. The town reminds me of the Old West, and we talked to the owner of the Italian joint, who said it started in the late 19th century with commodity concord grapes which became (or always were?) dominated by Welch's. So it was the Old West, in a way. It was settled around the same time, and it was a little farming town.

Here we are, grapejuice/wine bottle in hand:



Tomorrow, we'll go for a run in the grand, but sort of decaying, neighborhoods, and hopefully end up somewhere near Lake Erie. Then we're off to New York and the Adirondacks. And a very long drive tomorrow, assuming we take the scenic route (which I'm wont to do).