This travel blog is about making memories. I read in the travel section of the New York Times that post-pandemic travel will be focused on creating experiences to last a lifetime. For me that is what travel has always been, focused on the memories made and the lessons learned.
Paul Theroux, age 80 in 2020, drove solo (the best way to travel) across the United States from Cape Cod to LA and then flew on to his home in Hawaii for the winter. Pandemic road trip travel gave him the opportunity to view a hollowed out slice of America, to see what he had perhaps seen before but now saw through a new lens. I try to accomplish the same thing as I visit and revisit each of the 50 states
My first notable trip had to be the ride home from Shadyside Hospital in Pittsburgh to my home in Carnegie. I remember none of it. But just mentioning that first trip invokes two abiding memories of Pittsburgh. The Carnegie Museum of Natural History with their dinosaur fossils, along with Phipps Conservatory ( Home | Phipps Conservatory and Botanical Gardens | Pittsburgh PA ) on Pittsburgh’s eastside near the Shadyside District, were childhood favorites during school field trips. School field trips were probably my first form of travel. And how can I forget a visit to the Heinz factory and the little plastic gherkin pickle they gave us as we left.
I lived in a small town south of Pittsburgh for the first eighteen years of my life, until I left for college. Travel was a luxury in those days and we took no exotic vacations – I never flew in an airplane until after my high school graduation. Our trips were roadtrips, first in the 1948 Chevrolet and then in the 1960 Mercury Comet. I learned from that — one always keeps a car for a decade in order to properly make it roadworthy — perhaps explaining why my current vehicle is a Subaru. A favorite vacation trip in the 50’s was a drive north on U.S. Route 19 (no interstate) to Aunt Mary and Uncle Joe’s cottage on Lake Erie in North East, Pennsylvania, a then tiny town in the northwest corner of PA. (Try to figure that one out if you can). Today North East has become quite fashionable as a wine and fruit destination. ( North East, Pennsylvania – Wikipedia ) But Pennsylvania is more than Lake Erie I learned, we also visited Gettysburg on a family road trip vacation. Nowadays many kids have to go to DIsney and must visit their grandparents in far off destinations. My youth was different.
I have been back to southwestern Pennsylvania many times, the most recent being in 2016 for my 50th year high school reunion. It is a tradition at my high school that the 50th reunion class is honored at graduation, in 1966 approximately 17 graduates from the class of 1916 were honored, in 2016 approximately 28 of our class were present. Percentage wise the class of 1916 made a much stronger showing. I can’t recommend McMurray, PA, as an exciting travel destination, But I can recommend that as you age it makes a lot of sense to visit the place(s) where you grew up, not only to see old friends or family but to view, as an outsider, the places and people of your youth. You can never go home again, but those trips can transport you to a more exotic, more disquieting foreign land than you might find on a cruise down the Nile.
As an adult trips to Pennsylvania have often been focused on the southeastern portion of the state. In 1995 when my daughter was 15 she and a friend accompanied my husband and me to see my recently widowed father in McMurray. This roadtrip was different than the roadtrips of my youth. My daughter, born and bred in the State of Maine, had an enormous interest in all things Wyeth. At her age my interest in art was limited to photography, i.e. the pictures I took with a Polaroid Instant Camera and watched develop in front of my eyes. Her interest brought us on a slight detour to Chadds Ford and the Brandywine Museum ( Museum | Brandywine Conservancy and Museum of Art ) If you have never been it is well worth the detour and the time spent exploring the special world of Andrew Wyeth.
In 2014 I spent a week in Philly on a work related seminar trip. On that occasion I learned something about the city I had never known. At least as of 2014 Philly thought of itself as a city of murals and there were colorful murals painted on the sides of many buildings in all the neighborhoods. I was particularly taken by the Progress of Women murals.
Although I did not visit there in 2014 another great Philly haunt for an avid gardener like myself is Longwood Gardens in Kennett Square, PA. (Longwood Gardens ). I have spent time there wandering the gardens. The memory of a beautiful garden is always a dose of happiness.
Most recently I visited Pennsylvania in 2021 as part of the epic roadtrip you will learn about in later blogs. This trip my visit concentrated on Kane. PA. and U.S. Route 6 across the northern portion of the state, one of the premier remaining “blue highways.” Elk and PA sound like a strange combination, but let me tell you about the elk refuge. ( Elk Country Visitor Center – Elk Country Visitor Center ). Elk were native to Pennsylvania, but disappeared in the mid 1800’s because of loss of habitat and overhunting. In the 1920’s they were slowly reintroduced by bringing western elk here and now “native” elk herds have been established. Unlike the caribou which they tried unsuccessfully to reintroduce in Maine, these elk have thrived.
Pennsylvania is where I came from and where I will often pass through, but it is no longer my home. Nevertheless the state is a good one to explore and savor as there is much of interest there. Pennsylvania is located midway between the thirteen original colonies and thus acquired the nickname, the “Keystone State” of the new republic. It is also a keystone of my life. It has always been the place that holds everything together.
Memories - A Second Chance at Happiness 