Road trip: Days 2 and 3

DAY 2: PAUSE IN PITTSBURGH

We were planning on spending this day in Pittsburgh with some of Meredith's friends from college. Of course, we were planning on doing all sorts of fun stuff with them, like visiting museums, checking out the budding artist communities just outside of town, exploring downtown, and eating ethnic food. Well, as stated yesterday, Meredith drank some bad gas station milk on DAY 1. Instead of being tourists, we took her to the hospital. Luckily, Pittsburgh is full of them! I'm very happy to say that she received a very favorable prognosis and will be back to 100% very soon. Still, DAY 2 was spent nursing this lovely lady back to health. You know, iconic 80s movie, chicken broth, the works. To be honest, I needed a day to relax too. I wandered around the hood and took some pictures....

Urban blight is so photogenic!! Swoon...

Ms. M.'s friends live in the loveliest little post-industrial working class neighborhood....

...and they only pay $900/month for an ENTIRE HOUSE. I'm about to pay that for a shoe box in Seattle. The house from the backyard with Kate, one of Meredith's friends.

The house was so cozy and filled with all sorts of vintage furniture and fun randomness.


Berry making dinner for those of us that could hold down solid food... fresh basil from their garden!

Oh, and they live on Gangwish Street....



DAY 3: PITTSBURGH, OHIO, INDIANA, OH MY!

This morning we got off to a slow start. The lovely Ms. M. was feeling decidedly more chipper so we got some Ethiopian food and checked out the Andy Warhol museum before hitting the road.

(Aaaaand, now the internet is failing me so I can't upload more pictures.... Soon there will be more!!)

We drove through the entire state of Ohio and it was pretty uneventful. I didn't even take one picture.

Then we hit Indiana and realized that we are totally not on the east coast anymore. People talk funny and they sell Jesus license plate holders at the gas stations.

We stopped to spend the night in South Bend, home of Notre Dame University, really wide streets, and apparently not much else. There were about a million hotels right off the highway and we stopped into the first off-brand one we saw to check out the price. Even with a discount, the place was still out of our price range. I asked the receptionist if there was anything more economical nearby. He winced, sucking a hissing breath of air through his teeth. Then, fear entered his eyes...

"Not one that I can recommend" he said.

"Urhhmmm, okeyyy." I replied. "Well, this is a little more than I can afford, so..."

"Most of the hotels around here aren't safe. Definitely not the Howard Johnson.... The only one that isn't completely completely dangerous is the Motel 6."

We thanked the guy and left a little confused, wondering what completely completely dangerous actually meant and wondering if we should go back and ask him exactly what kind of danger we're talking about...

We found the Motel 6 and checked in through the bullet proof glass of the "night counter." There were a few people in the parking lot, and we were looked at very suspiciously by all of them. I think there was one guy with a prostitute in his car, a harmless looking guy walking his dogs, and a few college aged looking kids seemingly on a road trip. We got to our room and I wondered why I was so afraid of everyone. Surely we've both been in much more dangerous environments. We met in Valparaiso, for goodness sake. Ask most Chileans what they think of that and they will likely express their surprise that we weren't robbed in the process of having our first cafecito.

Meredith had a good insight when she said that her street smarts don't work here. I know that we are still in our own country, just a few hundred miles from where we grew up, but it is very different here, in both tangible and squishy, uncertain sort of ways.

Anyway, we're still kicking. Here's to hoping that we make it through the night!

Besitos,
Allie