Day 1: They put fries on their sandwiches

Sitting here in the Days Inn in Macedonia, Ohio, just outside Cleveland, having just realized I’ve already lost my hairbrush, meaning I’ll have truly radical hair when we visit the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame later today, I thought I’d take a moment and write a little about the first day of our road trip. We were sent on our way yesterday at my grandmother’s house in Bryn Mawr, PA, by my aunts and my uncle, a cousin and, of course, my wonderful grandmother, who stood outside her house waving goodbye to us as we started the engine and drove off.

Literally less than a minute later, we’d pulled over to the side of the road to fix a problem on our TomTom GPS navigation unit. So, you know, a little anticlimactic. But better, I guess, than getting horribly lost in the first 20 minutes.

We spend most of the afternoon driving with a few stops. Driving through beautiful farmland and along mountains and through many tunnels, our ears popping every now and then due to the altitude. We’ve both visited Pennsylvania on numerous occasions, and so driving straight through the state wasn’t really anything new, but it was still somehow thrilling to be off the roads we’re become so accustomed to driving the past few years. From North Carolina to DC and Connecticut and back. This was a change of pace. And we could do whatever we wanted on our own schedule.

We’ve basically got a library going in the back of our car – guidebooks on the entire country, books on specific parts of the country, books about wildlife and books about food. So when we checked out the expert advice and read about this place called Primanti Brothers in Pittsburgh – open 24 hours a day – we decided to stop in for a late dinner before driving a few more hours and calling it a night.

The restaurant was a small place in this area called the Strip District. It only took a little bit of driving around the city to find it and we enjoyed checking out the Pittsburgh downtown area, which I’ve only had the chance to visit on extremely brief trips in the past. Pittsburgh is really nice looking, with cool architecture, and is also really easy to navigate, which is great when you’re hungry and sort of tired.

Primanti Brothers specialized in Pittsburgh-style sandwiches. Despite the fact that it was almost 10 p.m. and they had the two televisions in the restaurant on a channel playing the movie “Old School” instead of the World Series (Yeah Red Sox!!!), it filled up with other hungry people like us very quickly. J and I got roast beef and cheese (for me) and pastrami and cheese (for him) and when the sandwiches were delivered to us only minutes after we’d ordered them I pointed excitedly and exclaimed the one truth I know about Pittsburgh from my very limited experience here. “They put fries on their sandwiches!” I said. “Right on them.”

And with that useful piece of knowledge under our belt, we ate, and observed, and returned to our car to get back on the road, happy and full and ready to go to Ohio.

Just like that Simon and Garfunkel song

When we decided to drive cross country rather than do something else with our time off, like go to Europe or spend more time at the Bay or even do something really outrageous like, say, look for a job, I knew there would be one major advantage to our decision. I would be able to write on my blog during the trip. I know sitting down at a laptop and typing away in the midst of a vacation might not sound like fun and, sure, there will probably be a few times where I'll really have to force myself to do this, but I think blogging about our adventures will be good for me. A sort of modern-day travel journal.

And, of course, the other major benefit - thanks to the awesome power of technology - is that I can invite you all along for the ride, so to speak. And instead of feeling obliged to read the incredibly lengthy emails I'd be bound to write if I didn't have this blog, you can choose whether or not you want to hear all the details regarding the totally retro diner we found in Wyoming or whatever.

I had J make the new cross country-inspired header that I'll leave up while we're on the road. We start tomorrow - we're leaving from just outside Philadelphia, where we're currently visiting my grandmother and attending a friend's wedding - and we figure the trip will take around a month, although we're willing to give or take a few weeks.

At first I was a little nervous about putting the new header up, replacing my normal green and pink header, which I think suits me and my personality. I don't know, I thought maybe the new header, with the map and all, makes me look like some kind of super-outdoorsy, brave soul on a mission to conquer new lands or something, instead of someone who likes to make fun of her father or write about a day at the mall and then call it a day.

But I decided it was important. If I'm going to write about our cross country trip, our journey as we set off to look for America, I might as well do it wholeheartedly, with my blog looking the part.

Besides, if anyone who doesn't already know me happens to stumble upon this site and thinks I'm the courageous type who's not afraid or bears and who likes to go camping in, like, ten feet of snow, well, they'll get the real picture soon enough.