Our week near Pittsburgh (actually just outside Beaver Falls, PA), went well! It was the first time we spent the week in a hotel while Matt worked.
Hotel living is good, and hopefully we’ll get better at it! It was nice to have our own shower and flushing toilet that we didn’t have to empty ourselves. We were able to dedicate time to school instead of fitting it in while driving or around other activities. There were nearby parks and a museum that we found to explore. Overall, really good…
…And figuring out food is more challenging with just a microwave and sink. It’s also really easy to eat all your meals in front of the TV since there wasn’t a table to sit around. And motivating yourselves to get going from a comfy hotel room often requires more gumption.
We did school Thursday and Friday while Matt worked. Then Saturday Matt worked again, and the kids and I walked over to the Air Heritage Museum. We did a scavenger hunt that the museum provided and found out escape maps were printed on decks of cards for US soldiers! And we toured and saw a number of old military planes.
Sunday we played some pickleball and soccer as a family at the nearby sports park before driving 15 minutes to East Palestine, OH so we could get gas and put the OH sticker on the van. We also washed the van while we were there. If you’re wondering why East Palestine sounds familiar, it was the site of the massive train crash several years back.
After stopping for showers and lunch back at the hotel, we went on to The Frick in Pittsburgh where we toured the grounds, carriage/auto museum, and art collection of the Frick family and took a walk in Frick Park. All beautiful. I think the greenhouse was my favorite.
It would be fun to spend more time in Pittsburgh. It seems like a really cool city – neat architecture, hilly roads, lots of bridges, etc. We were pleasantly surprised!
After doing school and Matt working Monday and Tuesday, we headed out Tuesday evening for Morgantown, WV with a short detour to pick up an invertor project for Matt on the northside of Pittsburgh from a guy on FB Marketplace. 🙂
The route through West Virginia was one of the options for going back to the Philly area via Gettysburg, so we figured we would be able to put the WV sticker on as well for not much extra time.
Actually, the tolls add up if you’re driving across PA, so we’ve taken a lot of scenic routes in an effort to avoid tolls. It’s been enjoyable!
When we woke up in Morgantown, WV, it was Matt’s birthday! First of the family to have a birthday on the road. We decorated the van, had some donuts, visited Gettysburg, and then celebrated with pizza and dessert back at Ryan and Claudia’s.
Gettysburg was a sobering and poignant reminder of the impact of war. We didn’t have a lot of time to spend there, but we went to the visitor center, cemetery/battlefield, and Little Round Top. Unfortunately this was the first day of the government shutdown, so there weren’t any rangers there. Gratefully the Gettysburg Foundation was keeping the Visitor Center open.
Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address is still inspiring today. I’ll post it on our quote page, so check it out if you haven’t read it in a while.
The next day we did school in the morning and then headed up to the Gunks (Shawangunk Ridge/Mountains) in NY. It’s a famous climbing area that we were somewhat intimidated by, but it was incredible! Thanks to our lovely guides, the vanPop family, we enjoying climbing, hiking, great food, fun, and apple picking. The weekend was definitely a high point of the trip!
And we picked up some fabulous (and fabulously cheap) socks and flasks on the way up!
The route ‘home’ was through New York, New Jersey (new state sticker to add!), and, of course, PA.
We went to Valley Forge for a bit today (12 minutes from the Ryan and Claudia’s), but were only able to see the grounds because of the government shutdown. Still neat to learn about and experience that part of history.
Thanks for following along! I’ll try to post more often, so they don’t get to be as long!
Hopefully you are all well! Missing you and/or looking forward to seeing some of you in the relatively near future!
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