DE-MD-PA-OH-IN!

Darby attempted to leave her mark on the beach!

Last family beach pic.

We left the beach house on Wednesday morning with a few tears in the process.  Headed towards Indiana via Pittsburgh.  I know there are bad drivers everywhere, as I've experienced some of them on this trip, and on previous travels.  But the drivers in Maryland seem to have taken the cake as we drove through the area.  It seems that NO ONE in MD realizes there is a RIGHT LANE on any of the interstates/freeways!  They all camp out behind each other in the far left lane!  Not that I have any issues passing people on the right, but I seemed to do it much more driving through MD (and probably PA too) than normal.  I am not sure what the department of transportation has wasted so much money on signs that say "Slower drivers keep right."

Bent silverware from Flight 93 crash site.

On our way to Pgh, we stopped off and saw the Flight 93 National Memorial in BFE Pennsylvania.  It was "kind of" off the beaten path, which was a good thing the day it crashed I guess.  It is a very well done memorial, and has some very interesting information about the day, the sequence of events that day, and the people on the flight.  There are 40 groves of 40 trees to remember the 40 innocent lives taken on Flight 93 that day.  I was surprised to see that they had the names of the 4 terrorists sitting in first class that hijacked the plane.  It was only displayed on the graphic that showed the seat assignments, but was still surprising to me that they even listed them there.

The alter where beer is brewed.

We enjoyed our night in Pgh!  After checking into our hotel right on the Monongahela River (it was literally 20' outside the back door of the hotel!), we made our way to one of my favorite micro breweries I've visited in my travels, The Church Breworks in the Lawrenceville area of Pgh, just NE of downtown a bit.  It is an old Catholic church that was shut down, and turned into a micro brewery about 20 years ago.  They converted the old church pews into bench seating, and the altar is where the stainless steel vats are for brewing beer.  The sun shines through the old stained glass windows, and it is just a cool setting for a brewery.

The original Primanti Brothers in the Strip District.

After getting some local beer and some pierogis as appetizers, we went to the Pgh staple of Primanti Brothers for dinner!  The girls got to experience having cole slaw and fries on their sandwiches for the first time!  And I got to enjoy a high quality IC Light with my sandwich!  :-)

In the Monongahela Incline tram car.

After dinner we did the Monongahela Incline!  It is an old, wooden, creeky tram type thing, but instead of being supported on cables the way a mountain tram typically is, it is on tracks like a train, but then pulled via a cable.  It actually seems to operate in a similar manner as the cable cars in SF.  Bish liked the idea of riding on this, until she saw the gaps between the rails as we started to climb up the hill!  Then she turned her face away from looking up/down to the ground, and started to just focus on the view of the rivers below!!!

View of downtown Pittsburgh and river confluence.

We got up the next morning, and hit the local Giant Eagle grocery store to pick up some pierogies to go, some shaved Islay Brothers ham for my mom's husband (he grew up in Pgh), and some Birch Beer, which the girls have discovered they like more than root beer, and it can only be found in the Northeastern US.

Darby with hot pastrami, and Danica with hot corned beef.

En route to my mom's place near Ft. Wayne, IN, we took a slight detour to the south side of the Cleveland area.  I was in the area a few years back for work, and had gotten together with a friend in the irrigation industry for lunch.  We had lunch at a local Jewish Deli called Corky & Lenny's on the SE side of town.  Danny and I each split one hot corned beef, and one hot pastrami sandwich, and had the fresh kosher dill pickles as a side to boot.  It was the most amazing sandwich I think I have every had in my life!  So when I determined we would be driving close enough to detour and hit this place for lunch, I started planning around that occurrence!

Heaven on earth in the kosher deli!

Bish did a few eye rolls and "whatevers" in my direction when I said I wanted to go out of our way to eat lunch at Corky & Lenny's.  We ordered one hot corned beef, one hot pastrami, a side of onion rings, and of course had to have some of their fresh kosher dill pickles too!  All the food was awesome, and as Darby walked out of the place, she made the statement "I have never had a favorite food, but I think that corned beef sandwich is now my most favorite food I've ever eaten!"  Since everything else was so darned good, we decided to get a strudel and an eclair to take with us to mom's for dinner that night too!  If you are ever in the Cleveland area, I would highly recommend trying this place out!

Tower of Bugs.  Notice the head and body sticking out of the green one!

On our way from Cleveland to Ft. Wayne, we stopped off in Defiance, OH to see the tower of VW bugs!!!

Once we get to Indiana, we will spend about 5 days there to see my mom, Jen and her family, as well as a few friends here and there.