A Blog Along The Lincoln Highway

We three musketeers go our various ways. Bob shoots with many of the producers for WQED’s nightly news magazine program called “On Q.” Then he and I start to work on a new Pittsburgh program that will be called “Invented, Engineered & Pioneered in Pittsburgh.” Jarrett gets hired as a grip on several of the [...]

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We’re back on the road. We left Pittsburgh yesterday morning about 11 am. We have a fine day. Beautiful blue skies above route 30 across the wide belly of Ohio. We eat lunch in Lisbon, Ohio, at the Steel Trolley Diner where Bob and I both have to have a Lincoln Highway burger with fries. [...]

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As we pull out of Fort Wayne, I’m considering all the ways I might get a new computer while traveling the Lincoln Highway. I talk to Mike Cuccaro at WQED’s Web office and he commiserates. I talk to our main computer guy on our editing team, Mr Matt Conrad, and he says, “Stop at an [...]

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After lunch, I take my first real shift as driver. Bob is a great co-pilot but his plans today get zonked by road repairs, accidents and detours of several sorts. We drive by the enchanted castle of Joliet Prison. We ride the short blocks in Plainfield, IL, where the Lincoln Highway and Route 66 overlap [...]

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The adventures never end. It’s 11:00 pm. We’ve just settled in our rooms at the Burke Inn in Carroll, Iowa. We’re exhausted, drenched, and happy to be safe and sound. And alive. Thunder roars, lightning flashes frequently and rain pours down outside my motel room window. Deep rumbles from the depths of the darkest clouds. [...]

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At the restaurant last night, we heard someone say that 4 people had just been killed by a tornado near Omaha. After our time in the basement, my sister Nisey called my cell phone to say that she just seen on TV that 4 boy scouts had been killed by a tornado in western Iowa. [...]

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When we meet in the lobby of the Burke at 8:30 am, Pitter is behind the front desk. Her real name is Pat, but she’s been “Pitter” since she was two. Tiny in stature, powerful in personality, she is giving Glenn our marching orders for the day. She has booked us an early appointment at [...]

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After our delicious quick stop in Woodbine, we get back on 30 and head south for the glass dealer in Omaha. The makeshift window that Bob and Glen fashioned from a black garbage bag holds up remarkably well. We check it periodically in the passenger-side rear-view mirror. We got lost in Omaha last year, and [...]

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With our glass restored, we decide to try and make up some lost time by jumping on I-80. It’s nicely ironic: by leaving the Lincoln Highway, we end up on the highway to Lincoln. I-80 goes slightly south out of Omaha to Lincoln. All we see of the state capital city is exit signs and [...]

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After dinner, the light gets beautiful as sunset approaches. This is the hour when all camera people get itchy. They want to shoot. It’s understandable. We’re zipping along the Lincoln Highway, taking advantage of the lack of traffic (all the rubes are out on the interstate which is not a problem), and just east of [...]

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