A Blog Along The Lincoln Highway

We stop one more time before we get to our appointment at the Lincoln Motor Court. Along Route 30 in Pennsylvania, there are just too many things to see and do as you motor along.

We pull off the right side of the road at the area where the official blue sign now says LOOKOUT POINT MT. ARARAT. There’s an amazing view from here. A low stone wall and a guard rail let you know that it’s surely safer to stay in the gravel, but if you step over both barriers, you can peer over the edge of the hill and see some of the ruins of the amazing Ship Hotel that was here from the early 1930s till 2001 when it burned to the ground. Bob and Glenn had to get a shot of the concrete and crumbly remains of its foundation about 15 or 20 feet down.
The Grand View Ship Hotel was a landmark work of roadside architecture, a big ship-shaped building that was built on the side of this mountain. You had to stop and take a look, although for many years you could also spend the night here because it was a hotel. On the prow of the ship there was lettering that let you know you could see 3 States and 7 Counties!

Bob and I had stopped here last fall when we drove out this way to get some shots of the Lincoln Highway with beautiful foliage. And we have to stop again today. It’s such a glorious summer day. The view is still wonderful, although it’s sliced by several tall thin burnt trees.

Back in 1992 when I was shooting stuff for our program called The Pennsylvania Road Show, I asked Brian Butko to come out here with us and talk a bit about the Ship Hotel because I had read an article he wrote about it for PITTSBURGH magazine. That’s when I met Brian (back when he had a blue Camaro convertible) and that’s the day I first learned about the Lincoln Highway.

When we stopped that day, the ship had a brown wooden exterior, a sort of shell over the old white ship structure, and the Ship Hotel was called Noah’s Ark at that time. I guess that’s why it still says Mount Ararat on the blue sign. I’ll have to ask Brian.

Back then Brian was working on his first book, a guide to the Lincoln Highway in Pennsylvania, and now, some 16 years later, he tells me that his next book will be about the history of the Grand View Ship Hotel.

Bob and Glenn and I fully document the striking views from Jerry’s office. He can actually look down on the spot where he would put the marker. We’re impressed. And I think how fortunate Lincoln Highway fans are that a man like Jerry would get excited and committed to such a project. I get the feeling that if Jerry can’t get a marker in place in Times Square, no one can.

“What are you gus going to do next?” Jerry asks.

“I thought we would offer to take you to lunch,” I say.

“How about I take YOU to lunch,” he counter-offers.

I say, “We’d be honored.”

He calls and makes reservations at a place called Trattoria Trecolori on 47th Street, one of his favorite places. We hike over there. It’s a small Italian place, white tablecloths, a maitre d’ who obviously knows Jerry, a cadre of attentive waiters, and really good food. Jerry orders fried mozzarella for us all as an appetizer. It’s not on the menu. Love that. Good crusty bread. A small dish of assorted tasty olives. Also a big plate of lightly fried calamari. And that’s just starters. We’re having a midday feast in Manhattan.

Bob and I are both tempted by the sardines special: flame broiled sardines. He and I agree to get an order of the linguine with clams and an order of the sardines, and we’ll share. Jerry gets gnocchi with an arrabiata sauce (made with bright red cherry peppers) and Glenn gets penne pasta with the same. After the caesar salads, before our entrees get to the table, Jerry’s wife Sue and eldest daughter Amy arrive. They’ve already had lunch but they come to sit with us, bringing new energy and a double dose of loveliness to the table. There are at least two conversations going from then on. How good the food is. How productive our morning was. How Sue is changing from a teaching career to a new job in school administration. How Amy once did cartwheels down a Texas highway when the family stopped because their suitcases fell off the roof of their car. How wonderful and goofy and exciting New York can be, especially Times Square. It’s a great lunch.

After the sardines and clams and several bottles of San Pellegrino, we get some of our equipment from Jerry’s office and we go back down 22 floors to get some more B-roll of Times Square. Glenn also suggests a video blog entry, and we give that a shot too. Times Square is beautiful and fun on a summer afternoon.

All weekend I’m working on editing the program and getting things ready for our trip to New York. Buddy Nutt the composer, vocalist and one-man-band, stops by on Saturday to talk about music for the promos, and he’s as cooperative and interested and helpful as I knew he would be. I’m embarrassed because I have to shove him out the downstairs door of WQED at 2:35 as I quickly gather my public-speaking paraphernalia because I forget I am supposed to be at Barnes & Noble in Monroeville. I jump in my car, speed out to the bookstore, and apologize to some of the folks who are waiting to meet me. I give out some promo DVDs of To Market To Market To Buy A Fat Pig, and I ask a set of trivia questions, most of them linked to the Pittsburgh 250 celebration that’s going on this year. I think that’s why I was invited to Barnes & Noble. It was their Pittsburgh Days.

Sunday I finish up my first swipe at the story about Kim Perkins and her used bookstore in North Platte, Nebraska. Then I drive home, do a load of laundry, pack my bags, and get back to work to do 12 more things, including starting the story about Richard Grudzinski and his gas station in Grand Island, Nebraska. I go home at 11:30 pm. Zonked.

Today I’m up early. My back aches. Or is that my left kidney? I get to work by 8, wearing shorts (against our dress code!), finish up some loose ends on the gas station story, gather all my releases and tapes for the trip. As always on days like this, I’m relieved to find Glenn and Bob both here, loading the van. We have, as usual, 1700 more things to do. They go and get gas in the van, check the air pressure in the tires (Barack Obama was right — they were under-inflated), buy windshield wiper fluid, some bottles of water, and pretzel nuggets for munching inn the van. We finally get out the WQED driveway around 11 AM.

It’s a glorious sunny day, but cool. Bob jokes, “We start our journey on a brisk October morning.” There is a slightly autumnal crispness in the air. We’re late, so we hop on the Pennsylvania Turnpike to Irwin, then we get on Route 30.

At Greensburg, you start to see lots of Lincoln Highway signs. Old segments of the original highway (or various intermediate routes from over the years) turn off of 30 at unusual angles to the north and south. You’d need a lot of time to explore all the possibilties. On the eastern outskirts of Greensburg, we take the one old segment that runs by the Mountain View Inn. This is the segment that Brian Butko first showed to me back in the early 90s, and so it was my first section of the old Lincoln Highway. You never forget your first chunk of historic roadway.

We take our time. We stop and shoot any stuff that looks interesting. As we get near Jennerstown, I say we ought to find the entry posts for the old camping area that Brian Butko mentioned in his interview last Friday. He pointed them out to me 16 years ago, but I don’t remember exactly where they are, so we watch for two stone columns on the north side of 30 as we zip along. I see two squat stone markers on the left, and we pull over to shoot them, but first I call Brian in his office back in Pittsburgh.

Brian helps me figure out that these are NOT the Jenner Pines Camping Park columns. We’re not there yet. He says the words JENNER PINES CAMPING PARK are carved into the columns. Oh, OK. He also suggests we consider the historic marker that’s coming up about Frederick Duesenberg who died on this road back in 1932. Hmm. That sounds interesting.

We stop to get a shot of the Duesenberg marker, put up by the Antique Automobile Club of America. There’s a big brown dog on the other side of the road who doesn’t approve of our activities, and he barks constantly. Tirelessly. We pay him no mind. But his yaps bring out the people who live in the house on our side of the road, the people who have the Duesenberg marker in their yard, and they tell us lots of information. There’s an old stretch of original Lincoln Highway that forks off here to the north, and these people point out how it continues on the other side, as what looks like the driveway of the barking dog. They say that old Duesenberg died off that section of the road, sort of back in the trees beyond that house.

These folks also give us a suggestion for lunch: the Coal Miner’s Inn in downtown Jennerstown. They say it looks fancier than it is, that the food is homemade, good and reasonably priced. Sounds perfect for us. We find it. We take advantage of the salad bar. Fluffy homemade dinner rolls. The waitress is saucy and smart. She gives us a hard time. And she brings turkey special for me, chicken parmesan for Bob, and raspberry chicken for Glenn. The portions are huge. Great desserts too.

After lunch, we have to drive back west a half mile or so to find the Jenner Pines stone markers, and we get a shot or two, knowing that we have to get going. We were supposed to be at the Lincoln Motor Court at 2, and it’s already 2:30. We need more time. The hours fly by on the Lincoln Highway.

So today, we finally devote a day to talking and riding with Brian Butko, the author of Greetings From The Lincoln Highway and The Lincoln Highway: Pennsylvania Traveler’s Guide, as well as assorted other books. He’s an old friend of mine, and he was the first person who ever made me aware of the Lincoln Highway. That was back in the summer of 1992 when I was shooting a statewide look at roadside attractions called The Pennsylvania Road Show (out of print for years but coming back soon in a DVD Special Edition with extras!)

He and I had talked last week about where we should do the interview, and Brian suggested Peppi’s Diner in Wilkinsburg, the vintage stainless steel structure that has been Charlie’s Diner and Scotty’s Diner in years gone by, but it’s been a Peppi’s sandwich shop for several years now. I thought it was an inspired choice, called and asked for permission to shoot there, talked to Lou at Peppi’s Downtown, and he was happy to let us invade for an hour or so.

(I actually like Peppi’s sandwiches very much - great bread, juicy meat, lots of tasty toppings - and in recent years they’ve received some attention for their Roethlisberger sandwich, named for the Steelers’ very popular quarterback. And I love that sandwich. Loosemeat, sausage, egg, cheese, onions, all slammed together in a big hoagie bun. Pretty scrumptious. They weren’t making this sandwich back when we did our Sandwiches That You Will Like program for PBS, or I probably would have included it in the show.)

Bob and Glenn and I meet Brian at the diner, set up a light in the one end of the place, and we monopolize that space for a good hour and a half. Brian knows too much about the Lincoln Highway. We talk about the road in Pittsburgh, in Pennsylvania and coast-to-coast. I’ve interviewed Brian two or three times before, but I think he is his best ever today. Maybe we’ve just known each other long enough (although sometimes that makes an interview more difficult) or maybe he is just more relaxed. He says lots of stuff I want to have in the program.

He also comments on how nicely Peppi’s have kept up the diner. The stools, the counter, the tiles, the rest rooms at the one end with the dark wooden door. . It’s a National brand diner, and Brian says they’re really rare. He knows too much about diners too.

Of course, we stay there and eat lunch. Jim and the staff treat us like kings. Big thanks to them. Brian gets a portabella hoagie, Bob and Glenn get the chicken and mushroom sandwich, but I have to get a Roethlisberger. Oh so huge and scrumptious. We split some fries too. I’m ready for a nap.

But we want to visit at least a few of the places that Brian has mentioned: the Lincoln statue in Wilkinsburg is top of our list. It was erected in 1918, paid for with pennies collected by local children, and it stands on the triangle of land where the old William Penn Highway meets the old Lincoln Highway, and then the two roads continue on together as Penn Avenue into Pittsburgh. We try several different set ups. Brian is taking pictures too because he’s putting together a new Lincoln Highway book, and he has the Lincoln Highway News blog, so he keeps snapping away, and Bob gets shots of Brian taking pictures.

We also drive across town, heading out the Ohio River Boulevard, sort of following the general direction of the original 1913 Lincoln Highway, but a block or two away from the actual original streets. We want to get to the odd little community called Glenfield, right where the huge bridge carries Interstate 79 over the Ohio River. It’s hard to find your way in to Glenfield (you have to take a viaduct over the train tracks, and the arrangement of signs and ramps is intimidating) and then there’s really only one street left in the odd collection of houses between the railroad tracks and the river. That one street is made of yellow bricks, and it’s old and bumpy and wavy, and you would be a fool to dive it faster than 15 or 20 miles an hour. It used to be the Lincoln Highway. A lost old segment in Glenfield.

The day goes way too fast. I have to be at Kennywood Park by 5 PM for an interview on WORD radio, and Brian lives in West Mifflin, where the amusement park is located, so I bum a ride with him. Even as we zip back into town, Brian takes an unexpected detour in Avalon and shows me another twisty old segment of the highway that goes across an old Allegheny County Bridge from 1896. I’m always learning when I’m with Brian.

The memory of being on the road is so fresh. The wonderful uncertainty of not knowing where you’ll be tonight. The joy of being somewhere you’ve never been before. The possibility of a delicious surprise for lunch or dinner. The rush of meeting new people and hearing some of their stories. All these things can be so exhilarating, and once you’re back in the routine of everyday life, you miss these highs of travelling. You miss the road. I miss the road.

And if you encounter some old friends who are still in the middle of a road journey, you can be envious. I envy Bob and Buddy.

Bob Chase and Buddy Rosenbaum, the two guys we met in Wyoming, are still working their way across America on the Lincoln Highway, and they arrive in Pittsburgh today. I talked to Buddy last night when he and Bob were in East Liverpool, Ohio, not far away at all. I thought they’d be here Wednesday and Thursday, and I had a crew reserved for Thursday, but we have to shift things. I call to see if my trusty cameraman Bob Lubomski (a tale of two Bobs can get confusing) is available to work with me today. Glenn is off working on another project already.

Bob and I pack up my Honda Element (with its “moonroof” removed so we can shoot out the top of the vehicle) and head for the Heinz History Center. Buddy calls while we’re en route. “Wait there. We’ll be there in 5 minutes,” I say.

It’s good to see the guys and their motor trikes, Sofia and Marcello. I’ve been reading their blog, and they’ve set a good pace, leaving time for chance encounters as well as promotional stops at Piaggio dealers. They don’t look exhausted or road-weary. Their bikes attract attention immediately. Everybody passing by (including all the security guys at the History Center) wants to see and hear about the vehicles.

We’re meeting here at the Heinz History Center so they can meet Brian Butko (who’s featured them lately on his Lincoln Highway News site,) and so we can all go to lunch in the Strip District, Pittsburgh’s fabled neighborhood that once was an important center of produce and other food distribution. It’s still a bit of that, but it’s also Pittsburgh’s best collection of interesting food shops with all sorts of specialties that you can’t find anywhere else around here. And the History Center is there too.

Brian comes down from his office, we have a get acquainted session there by the bikes, then we head off for lunch. We decide to try for Enrico’s Biscotti where Larry Lagatutta has a very European little eatery in the alley beside and behind his bakery. It is a good choice. Sandwiches and salads for most of us, Italian greens and beans for Buddy. Larry is interested in the Piaggio bikes (although he really wants a vintage Vespa I think) and he treats us well. It’s a relaxing and delicious lunch. Bob and Buddy seem ready to sit back and enjoy a little breather.

I drive Brian back to the History Center. It’s a really hot day. And getting hotter.

When we all get up from our liesurely lunch, I get in the Honda with Bob standing up through the moonroof in the back, shooting Buddy and Bob as they drive down Liberty Avenue into the heart of downtown Pittsburgh. Liberty Avenue was once a route of the Lincoln Highway. In town, we get out, set up the tripod, and make Bob and Buddy drive around the block several times. They are sweltering in the sun with their helmets and jackets on. They quickly shed layers any time we stop.

After several downtown shots (to contrast with the wide open road we shot them on back in Wyoming), we head for Route 30 east of town. We stop on Ardmore Boulevard and get Buddy and Bob zipping by the 1928 concrete Lincoln Highway marker that’s almost invisible beside the parking lot of a strip shopping center.

Then we head into Turtle Creek to shoot them going over an old bridge that Brian had recommended. Apparently the bridge, a funky old metal through-truss bridge, may be replaced next year, but it used to be on the official Lincoln Highway before the nearby, beautiful, concrete arch Westinghouse Bridge was built around 1930.

It’s hot. Bob the cameraman is hot. Bob and Buddy on their bikes are sweating buckets, but they are such good sports. May I please be so cooperative and spry when I’m 71 or 72.

We do two quick interviews, asking each guy questions and forbidding the other one to listen. They’re both champion talkers and philosophers about their trip and the road and the impending end in Times Square. They’re more relaxed now on-camera than they were back in Medicine Bow.

After the interviews I offer to buy beers for everybody, and they insist that THEY buy the beers. We end up at D’s in Regent Square for good cold drafts in a really pleasant neighborhood beer emporium. I help find them rooms for the night. They have to be at KDKA TV back downtown in the morning. We’ve really enjoyed talking advantage of them. It’s been a good day.

And I’m still envious of their ongoing journey.

Saturday, after catching the end of Buddy Nutt’s performance on the North Side, I went to WQED to look at interviews that we taped last August and September when we made our first big Lincoln Highway trip.

Sunday, after the book-signing event at Border’s East Liberty, I went back to WQED to keep looking at interviews, pulling sound bites and assorted comments that I think might make for a good promotional video. I get about 7 and a half minutes of possible bites.

Now Monday, I’m at work early because I want to have the 2-minute selection ready when our editor Kevin Conrad arrives. I cut cut cut.

When Kevin arrives he looks at it, we try some background music, and I find that I miscalculated the length, and it’s just 1:40 at this point. Hooray! I get to restore some of the comments I’d cut.

PBS wants a 2-minute promo to include on a reel for the Press Tour which is coming up in July in Los Angeles. I call PBS to get the details, and I find out that they want it today. We can deliver it via an FTP site. Hmm. We’ve never delivered anything to PBS via FTP before. But OK. Matt Conrad, our assistant editor, who knows about how to best extract the video in new computer formats, will have to come in tonight.

Kevin and I consider various pictures to cover some of the comments. By mid-afternoon, we’re done. The project seems more real that ever. The first promo is a big step. Here it is.

Sunday morning. I get up by 9 to catch some of “CBS Sunday Morning,” my favorite TV program. I want to make my stories like theirs, and I really enjoy the commentaries too and the relaxed tone of the news. And of course, it used to be hosted by the late great Charles Kuralt who was, like me, a graduate of UNC at Chapel Hill. A Tarheel.

Anyway, I’ve got to be at the Borders in East Liberty (they are calling it “Borders East Side” for no good reason) by 1:00. There’s a book signing event there today to celebrate the publication of the tome called Pittsburgh Born Pittsburgh Bred. It’s about 500 people who’ve had some connection to Pittsburgh and some degree of celebrity for various reasons over the last 250 years. Andrew Carnegie, Andy Warhol, H.J. Heinz, Rachel Carson, Christina Aguilera, George Ferris and me, among others. I’m flattered to be included and quickly agreed to be a part of this event today.

There are 3 of us from the book at Borders: legendary guitarist Joe Negri (AKA Handyman Negri on Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood,) singer-songwriter and novelist Bill Deasy, and TV producer me.
Several of the writers of the book are there too: Prentiss Orr (who wrote my bio in the book), Tripp Clarke (who organized this book-signing today), Chris Fletcher (former editor of Pittsburgh Magazine who stayed only a few minutes) and Mr. Brian Butko, author of Greetings From The Lincoln Highway and other road-related classics.

I hadn’t talked to or seen Brian since we got back. He’s been kind to include lots of our recent adventures on his Lincoln Highway News website. And I want to see how we can use him in some of the stories that we still have to shoot. Maybe take him with us to Times Square so we can talk to him there about the scope of the highway and its history. Brian is looking mighty natty today: vintage Hawaiian shirt and one of his father-in-law’s old hats. I tell him it’s a good look for him.

In the past couple of months, I’ve become aware of the wonderfully goofy and lively music of a musician named Buddy Nutt who lives here in Pittsburgh. He’s a composer, a singer and a one-man band, playing ukulele, kazoo, drums, cornet, and musical saw, among other things. I’m hoping he will agree to compose the music for A RIDE ALONG THE LINCOLN HIGHWAY. I have his CD which includes a song about the choices offered by the Westinghouse Bridge, which is part of the Lincoln Highway as it comes into Pittsburgh from the east, so I thought he might be persuaded.

So far, all my contact with him has been thanks to Mike Cuccaro (who works in WQED’s Web office) who first alerted me to the joys of Buddy Nutt and his tunes. And Mike has told me that Buddy will be performing this morning at the Pittsburgh Children’s Museum (which is housed partially in the grand old North Side Post Office building,) and I think I ought to go and hear him and introduce myself.

Traffic is terrible. To avoid the Tour de Pennsylvania bicycle race which is ending in downtown Pittsburgh, I take Route 51 toward the West End, and it’s all torn up. I sit in dead traffic for at least 20 minutes. I’m so late I think I’ve probably missed Buddy, but I can hear him playing as I drive up to the museum.

He’s playing out in front of the old Buhl Planetarium building under a tent. I luck into a convenient parking space, and I get to the tent to hear Buddy finishing up one number. He then announces that his next song is a new one about the Lincoln Highway, which he’s been thinking a lot about lately, and he plays and sings a wonderfully simple and catchy song about the highway.

I’m in awe. I just love the wacky, loose, jangling sound of his music, and hearing him sing this Lincoln Highway song makes me feel good. I’m guessing that he will say Yes to working with us on the program.

Here’s Buddy singing one of his songs on YouTube:

We partake of the freebie breakfast in the motel this morning. Cereal and some microwaveable munchies. Yogurt. Sometimes, like today, in Marriott hotels, they also have slippery, already peeled hard boiled eggs. I ate one of those.

Before we get back on the interstate, Bob wants to go and see the overflowing Mississippi again. It’s just a few miles from our Moline motel. “It was so awesome last night, I just want to go and see how high it is again.” We drive into downtown Moline, go to the riverside park, and find the river totally contained. It’s high, but not overflowing or dramatic in any way. Bust.

Then we get on 1-80 across Illinois. Drive drive drive. I’m sure there’s lots of stuff to see and discover, but none of it along the interstate. I’m in the backseat. We keep a log on the inside of a shoebox lid, listing all of our mileage figures for each day. It’s kept in the pouch behind the front passenger seat. We expect that tonight will be our final entry for this trip.

I write a bit on my computer in the backseat. I pull out Roadfood and see if there are any interesting potential lunch stops. There’s one just on the western border of Indiana — in Hammond, Indiana — called Phil Smidt’s. The Sterns make it sound important and amazing. Bob said he’s salivating just hearing about the frog legs, and the “half-and-half” of perch and frog legs sounds pretty buttery and unusual. Bob can see Calumet Avenue on the AAA map, so we’ll get off at that exit and give it a try. I think I had better check to make sure they’re open today. On my iPhone, I find their website and there’s a closing notice, although it just says “will close the doors” on Saturday, October 20. No year. I call the 1-800 number listed there: 1-800-FROGLEG, and it doesn’t go through. We’re getting off the exit. There’s all sorts of road construction going on along Calumet Avenue. I find a newspaper article about the possible re-opening of Phil Smidt’s, so I know it’s closed. There will be no gooseberry pie today. Maybe never again.

We do a U-turn in the middle of the orange barrels, get back on the fast road, and we decide we’ll drive into La Porte where we’ve eaten twice before on the last trip. There’s a classic old lunch place with counter and stools called B&J’s American Cafe. Bob and I both think we wouldn’t mind eating there again. Good soup and decent sandwiches. And it’s on one path of the Lincoln Highway, so we could say that we didn’t spend the entire day on the interstate.

Soup of the day is beef and asparagus. Dark, deep and tasty. Bob and Glenn both get the Hawaiian Chicken salad with coconut fried chicken. I get the olive cheeseburger. But it’s the kind of place where you have to taste dessert. Bourbon Pumpkin Pie for Glenn & Berry again for Bob. Rhubarb crisp for me. A la mode. Good but way too much lunch. One of the waitresses remembers us from last year. “Weren’t you doing something about the Lincoln Highway?” Good memory!

I drive east out of LaPorte, staying on Lincolnway, Route 2, almost to South Bend, when we find our way back onto I-80. We’re all zonked. Tired. And full. I don’t drive for long when I ask for someone else to take over. Glenn has been snoozing in the back seat, so he agrees to get back behind the wheel.

The last few hundred miles are the worst. We all admit to mixed feelings. It’ll be nice to be home, familiar this and familar that. Loved ones. But the wacky business of the road is delicious too, and we’re not totally tired of it yet.

We’re happy to pay off the Indiana toll and zoom into Ohio. But Ohio is Toledo, then faraway Cleveland, and we’ll have a stretch of Pennsylvania Turnpike too. When thinking about travel, I always remember a line from one of Milan Kundera’s early books: (I’m paraphrasing but it’s close) “The most beautiful thing in the world is the horizon on the day that you begin a trip.” One of the worst things in the world has got to be the Ohio Turnpike as you finish a long journey.

We work as a team on some crossword puzzles. Glenn is quick to write in anything that fits. I’m more cautious. Bob loves crosswords and doesn’t want to be disturbed when he’s absorbed in the boxes and ACROSS and DOWNs.

We listen to Bob Dylan’s Theme Time Radio Hour on my iPod. I borrowed a friend’s CDs of the broadcasts, and they’re fun to listen to in the car. The songs are tied to a theme — this one was “Maps” or “American Cities” if you will — and some tunes are familiar and current while many are old and bluesy.

Against our own rules, but for speed’s sake, we grab a quick sandwich at a Panera at one of the rest areas along the turnpike. Not bad for chain food.

Eager for activities that may make the minutes go faster, we cut a track for one of Glenn’s video blogs. Bob shoots me as I drive. Glenn directs from the back seat. One take.

Finally, we see signs for Pittsburgh. Pay the Ohio toll. Go a mile or so and pay a Pennsylvania toll too. A woman working at one of the tollbooths hollers, “I love Fred Rogers!” I yell, “Thank you!”

After the tollbooth, the orange barrels start. The road is limited to one lane, it’s like driving straight into a tense and deadly video game. Welcome home!

We make familiar territory. Cranberry Exit. I-79. Downtown Pittsburgh. Up past the arena onto Bigelow Boulevard and into the WQED bunker. Home.

When do we go again?

People in Woodbine know that Route 30 makes an unusual turn there at the one end of their town. If you’re heading east, you cross the Boyer Bridge and then make a sharp right to stay on 30 rather than coming straight into town on the old brick Lincolnway. If you’re heading west on 30, you make a sharp left in front of Walker’s Service Station and go across the Boyer Bridge.

I love the way the folks in Woodbine say “Boyer Bridge.” They don’t say Boy-yay like Charles Boyer. They say Boo-yer, but with a pure U sound in the Boo, almost like a French u. Buu-yer Bridge. It crosses the Boyer Creek.

Anyway, Bob wants us back on the interstate ASAP, and Marshall has given him some special directions. We cross the Boyer Bridge and turn left immediately on Iowa F-32, heading east across the hills. It’s a wonderful two-lane that’s great fun to drive. And because the terrain is rolling hills now, we get excellent vistas at the crest of many hills. There’s minimal traffic, and when we get to Iowa Route 59, we turn south to Route 44, and continue eastbound toward Des Moines.

Bob says we’re saying on this as long as we can unless traffic gets bad. He’s taking pictures of the landscape as I drive.

In Guthrie Center, Iowa, we stop for gas and Glenn takes the wheel. We actually are pretty good about sharing the driving duties. We’ve rotated seats regularly the whole trip.

We drive till about 8 pm, decide we’ll try to find a place in the Quad Cities. There seem to be no rooms in Davenport. “Because of the floods,” one clerk tells me, “there are lots of volunteers and FEMA workers in town.” Using my iPhone, I find us the last three rooms at the Fairfield Inn in Moline, Illinois. We cross the wide and recently overflowing Mississippi.

The woman at the Fairfield Inn who took our reservations suggests that we stop for dinner at Montana Jack’s which we’ll pass en route to the hotel. OK. It’s an unusual little steak house with a western theme. The waitresses all wear cowboy hats and some have holsters and toy guns. At least we assume they’re toys.

Bob and Glenn get seafood platters. I get the Cowboy Steak, a bone-in rib eye, and it turns out to be the best steak I’ve had in a long time. Rare and tender and delicious.

Then we find our rooms and crash for the short night.