Trip Peek #119
Trip #34
PA Potpourri

This picture is from my 2005 PA Potpourri trip. It is of the incline built in Johnstown, PA, just two years after the infamous 1889 flood. This trip was one of a cluster of work-related trips to central Pennsylvania augmented with some personal time. Previous trips had been focused on US-6, the Lincoln Highway, and the National Road. This one, as the name suggests, focused on nothing in particular. I used it to visit some sites that those roads did not. The potpourri included, in addition to Johnstown, the still-burning town of Centralia, a coal mine in Ashland, the nation’s oldest brewery (Yuengling), the world’s oldest roller coaster (Leap the Dips — not operating on the day I was there), and some parts of the National Road.


Trip Peeks are short articles published when my world is too busy or too boring for a current events piece to be completed in time for the Sunday posting. In addition to a photo thumbnail from a completed road trip, each Peek includes a brief description of that photo plus links to the full-sized photo and the associated trip journal.

Fallingwater and…

After checking out Frank Lloyd Wright designed buildings in 2018 and 2019, I planned to keep the string going with a visit to Fallingwater in 2020. It didn’t happen, of course. Tours were shut down for COVID-19 in March of that year and did not return until March of this year. So a trip once planned for April is taking place in August (Hey, they both start with ‘A’!) two years later. Some Lincoln Highway and National Road mileage is included along with some historic lodging.

This entry is to let blog-only subscribers know about the trip and to provide a place for comments. The journal is here.

Trip Peek #112
Trip #21
Impromptu PA

This picture is from my 2004 Impromptu PA trip which was exactly what the title says. It started with an impromptu work trip that put me in the middle of Pennsylvania a few days ahead of the Memorial Day weekend and finished with a drive home that filled the weekend. On Friday, I headed north through some interesting small towns to reach US-6 which I would follow west until it crossed US-62. US-62 took me to Ohio where I hugged the north bank of the big river till I was back in home territory. The photo is of the Sterling-built diner in Wellsboro, PA, on Route 6. The just-completed World War II memorial was being dedicated that Saturday and a real treat was attending a ceremony in Smethport, PA, that was coordinated with the events in D.C. On Memorial Day, I saw the very tail end of the parade in Portsmouth, OH. In between, I checked out the reconstructed Fort Steuben and the Ohio River Museum in Marietta.


Trip Peeks are short articles published when my world is too busy or too boring for a current events piece to be completed in time for the Sunday posting. In addition to a photo thumbnail from a completed road trip, each Peek includes a brief description of that photo plus links to the full-sized photo and the associated trip journal.