c. David Grim (taken 6/20/10)We concluded our trip yesterday morning, and made the drive back to the 'Burgh in shimmery blue midday sky. Sometimes it takes a ride on Rte. 28 to remember that hurtling down the road can be therapeutic. I do realize how odd that sounds, and yes, I have made many passes down the stretch of 28 that is infamous for its hellish anxiety. Once you get to the Waterworks, you can expect one of two things. Either you will be sitting in a constipated bowel, with nothing but construction crews to distract you, or you will be trying to dodge the idiots who think that two-lane urban highway driving is great training for the NASCAR circuit. Oh yeah... I got stories.
But once you get out past the point where 28 reverts back from three lanes, down to two, and finally one... then it gets fun. It's easy to slip into a dreamy reverie when you are going up and down the hills of Western PA, surrounded by trees and rural activity. The economy can lend the terrain a gritty, rundown beauty that evokes my sense of the term "American Gothic". And then it's just a matter of picking my favorite continuous play CD (right now it's something by Jurassic 5 that I picked up at a yard sale) and not hitting any animals making their perilous trek across the hard-top.
I made the trip with anticipation for my third Father's Day as a progenitor, and I had a slowly coalescing plan of entertainment in store for my son E. A month or two ago, I took him out to his cousin's B-day party at some crazy indoor over-stimulating "Fun Zone" out by North Park. He went crazy jumping in a pit of plastic multicolored balls, and crawling through elevated tunnels that I felt somehow obligated to follow him through. So I guess I knew what I was getting myself into yesterday even before he ate bacon dipped in maple syrup at the Eat n' Park.
So here is an image from a day that I found, on the whole, pretty damned relaxing.
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