h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Actually, a couple of them. But I'll warn you again, this is a very long journal entry, so you might just want to skip it.

About a month ago, it was time to take Amy+ back to Uni, and since Radford University is about 7 hours away from here and Lord Scott's mother lives only about 45 minutes from Radford, the whole family was planning to go.



But life was about to throw a monkey wrench into the works.

About a week before we were to leave, Amy+ caught some kind of stomach bug.

A few days before the trip, I came down with it too, but it appeared to only be a 48 hour bug, so I was recovered and ready to go with the family in time.

The night before we were to leave on the trip, Shorty remarked that her stomach was hurting.

Uh-oh.

I asked "Hurting where, and hurting how?" And of course her description clearly fit the early symptoms that both Amy+ and I had experienced.

If two of us had caught it, and a 3rd person in the family looked for all intents and purposes as if she was coming down with it, could Lord Scott be far behind? (As it turned out, he never did get it, but we didn't want to take the chance of infecting his mom with it.)

So the decision was made that I would take Amy+ back to Uni all by myself.


I'd never driven that far, all in one day, all by myself. I'm used to riding that far, and making trips of 2-1/2 to 3 hours by myself, but not *that* long!

Worse than that, Interstate 81 tends to put me right to sleep when I'm driving on it, because it's pretty much just straight road that goes on and on , for hours and hours , without a whole lot of change in scenery for long periods of time.

Luckily, there is the old US Rt 11 which goes in the same direction, sort of paralleling 81, but often crossing under or over the interstate, although there are short areas where the two routes are combined onto 81. It goes through most of the little towns along the way and is a much more scenic route than the interstate, although significantly slower, both speed limit-wise and because of the winding, less direct route.

So the morning of the big trip, Amy+ and I were all packed up, and ready to go, armed with lots of CDs to listen to along the way. Amy+ kept me wide awake on the way down, engaging me in conversation, and popping various CDs into the machine. (Out of self defense, I'm sure. If I got too quiet for a while, she'd ask if I was still doing ok, just to make sure I was still awake.)

We stopped frequently, and switched from 81 to 11 when 81 became too boring, then from 11 to 81 when 11 seemed too slow going. We also made lots of phone calls to home and Grandma's to let them know that we were still doing fine and to let them know how far we'd driven.

It may only be a trip of 6-1/2 to 7 hours "actual driving time" if you stay on 81, but between all our stops, and taking the slower Rt 11 so much of the time, the entire trip took us about 12 hours. I know that sounds like a lot, but it's not unusual for the trip to take us 9 or 10 hours when Lord Scott drives on 81 the whole time, because even though we don't make a lot of stops, they're generally *longer* stops, so all things considered I didn't think we did too badly, time wise.

Over the next two days, we moved all Amy+'s stuff into her dorm room. It took two carloads from Grandma's house, because Grandma stores a lot of Amy+'s Uni stuff at her home, and we'd already brought a car-load with us from home. This all went amazingly smoothly, despite the oppressive heat and random thunderstorms those two days. (heat + rain = steamy conditions)

Amy+ continued to take good care of me, especially since I didn't seem to notice that my blood sugar was getting too low, so she forced me to eat, which made me feel much better.

I went back to Grandma's for one last night, and had a good night's sleep in preparation for a long day of driving home to Pennsylvania.

By myself.

*All* by myself.

No one to make sure I stayed alert and awake.

I stopped by Radford to say goodbye to Amy+ in the morning, and between a casual stroll around the campus and taking her out for a quick lunch, I wasn't ready to leave Radford until afternoon.

I popped a CD into the machine, and plugged in my cell phone. I must have made 20 or 30 calls during the course of the trip, to let various people know I was still on the road, still awake, how far I'd driven, and still doing fine. (Not to worry, I pulled off to dial the call every time. )

I arrived home at approximately 9pm, about 12 hours after I'd left Grandma's in the morning. It really wouldn't have taken me even that long, except for the long stop in Radford and the bumper to bumper traffic that moved at a snail's pace (when it moved at all) near Harper's Ferry, along a stretch of road that parallels and eventually crosses the Potomac.



Fast forward to this Thursday.



Shorty+ is in the process of trying to pick a Uni to go to next year. She likes Duke, but being a very difficult school to get into, she needs to also find at least one other school, a "safety school", one that she likes and can be very certain will accept her.

To that end, she wanted to check out the University of Pittsburgh. She had this past Friday off school, so that seemed like a good time to drive across the state to see it. Except that Lord Scott couldn't take time off work to take her, and having so recently proven that I was capable of driving long distances, I was unanimously elected to take her.

To a city I'd never been to before in my life.

With the remnants of a hurricaine on the way.

Undeterred, and armed with a folder of MapQuest directions, AAA directions, various maps of the state and the Pittsburgh area, maps of the University, and motel room reservation confirmations, plus even more CDs than we could possibly listen to on this trip, we headed out on the Pa Turnpike. Westward, ho!

Surprise, surprise! The Pennsylvania Turnpike has *tunnels* through some of the mountains! Did I mention that Shorty and I were splitting the driving duties? But that it would be kind of difficult to switch drivers along the turnpike, except at the service plazas? Which were placed at random intervals along the way? Anywhere from 1/2 hour apart to 1-1/2 hours apart?

So guess who was driving when we happened upon the first tunnel? Which was closely followed (by only about 100 yards) by the second tunnel? And there was no service plaza before the next tunnel? The one that had *two way* traffic in it because work was being done on the tunnel in one direction.

Shorty+, of course. The one who's had her driver's license less than a year.

Luckily, she really enjoyed driving through the tunnels. Phew.

At one point, I looked up and noticed this huge windmill above the trees on a distant mountain. As we got closer, I saw another, then suddenly I saw about half a dozen of them. I had no idea that Pa had a wind farm! It's located at Somerset. http://www.fred.net/tds/windenergy/somerset/ Truly an awesome sight, the photo doesn't do it justice.

We finally arrived at our motel just outside Pittsburgh to find that there were no parking spaces at all on the end of the building where our room was located. I have no idea why, although by morning, nearly the entire parking lot on our end of the building was empty. Must have been some kind of corporate dinner there that evening.

By morning, the remnants of Ivan the Terrible had arrived. We headed out to try to find the University of Pittsburgh, getting caught in morning rush hour (or maybe 3 hours, who knows?), with bumper to bumper traffic at a snail's pace leading to the Squirrel Hill Tunnel. Judging by the traffic headed towards this tunnel, it must have been the only entrance into the city from the east, and there we were in it.

Finally, we reached our exit, and followed the directions to the U of Pitt campus.



Through a terribly dirty, run-down area.

Ok, so far not impressed, maybe the university is better.


"Wait, was that a sign that said University of Pittsburgh?"



Yeah, it was. But for some reason, this just looks like a downtown business district of a city, with high rise buildings everywhere. Where's the campus?

"What do you mean this *is* the campus?"

Oooooh-Kaaaay.

No grass, no trees.

Oh wait, there's a little patch of grass around the "Cathedral of Learning".

"Does it seem to you like it's raining harder all of a sudden?"

"No, I'm not sure which of the 3 lanes we need to be in here", on one of the many roads through the "campus", with stoplights all over the place.

Suddenly where we were didn't look like part of the campus. Not that the campus looked anything like a campus, but the high rise next to us had a sign saying it was an apartment building.

I checked the map, and sure enough, we'd wandered off the campus.

Somehow, we managed to find our way back to the campus, but if we were going to make it to the 10am informational session, we needed to find a place to park.

Oh look, another small patch of grass on top of the underground garage.

"Um, you know... if you really don't like the looks of this school and can't imagine yourself going here, we really don't have to stay and go to the informational session and do the walking tour of the campus. In the rain. Which is only going to get worse as the day goes on."

We decided to just head for home, somehow finding our way out of Pittsburgh and back to the turnpike. I drove through the turnpike tunnels on the way home, again splitting up the driving with Shorty+, driving in and out of heavy bands of rain the whole way.

Well, that was an interesting, if futile drive.

So what's next?

Homecoming is at Radford October 8th and 9th, and Amy+ wants me to come down for it. It'd be really nice to see the beautiful fall leaves in the mountains for a change - I haven't seem then in years and years.

I'm considering it.

Now that I know I can make the drive by myself.







Oh, and if depsite the warning, you read all the way to the end of this journal entry, you obviously have nothing better to do with your time, and my apologies for boring you so thoroughly.

You're right as usual, Lady Scott.

I don't have anything better to do with my time. I had just finished washing the dishes, and didn't want to go to bed right away, so I read your account of your trips.

There was more to it that I left out, if you really have nothing better to do, you can read this too:

The trip to Pittsburgh was further complicated by the fact that I'd done something to my shoulder the day before we left. Apparently I'd pulled a muscle while swimming, and what was just an occasional twinge the night before was full fledged stabbing pains in my shoulder every time I tried to move my arm certain ways by the time we reached Pittsburgh.

I probably made it worse when I carried some stuff into the motel in Pittsburgh with that hand. And that was probably made worse by the fact that there were no parking spaces anywhere at all on the end of the motel where our room was located, so we had to park at the opposite end and carry our stuff to the other end of the building, so I really stressed an already injured shoulder.

I had a very difficult time getting comfortable enough to fall asleep that night, especially since my extremely sore shoulder would only allow me to lie certain ways, none of them my usual sleeping position. The bed was too hard, and the pillow like a fluffy lump that smushed away from my head. Then I woke up at 2 am, and couldn't get into a comfortable position again until after 5:30 or so. I dozed off for a few minutes then, but as soon as I moved a little, the stabbing pains in my shoulder woke me up again.

By morning, my arm was pretty much useless, with my range of motion reduced to bending my elbow with my upper arm flat to my side.


On the way home, I could manage to get my hand on the steering wheel, but I couldn't make my arm move in the right direction to adjust the windshield wipers, so Shorty+ was turning them off and on and adjusting the speed for me when I was driving in and out of bands of heavy rain, tunnels and being passed by tractor trailers spewing water all over the car from the wet road.

It started getting better a few hours after we got home, and is back to normal now, even the residual soreness I had yesterday seems to be gone.

Wow! That really was a couple of adventures wasn't it?

I'm so glad that you got were you were going and back home again safely!

You are so brave! I am very sure I'll never learn to drive the car so I always admire people who can do it for hours and hours...
Well done, Lady Scott!

If you break the trip up enough, it doesn't seem all that different from a day with lots of errands to do, driving here and there locally.

Still trying to decide about going to Radford for Homecoming weekend.

You WILL come for homecoming...

Just seeing ETH live on Moffet Lawn is worth it.

I think I'll wait and see what the weather is expected to be like that weekend - I'm not wild about spending all day driving through hurricaine remnants again, and the hurricaine season isn't nearly done yet.

Or even heavy rain *not* associated with a hurricaine.

At any rate, your Dad will be down this weekend.

It's always pretty on Highlander Festival weekend. It'll be fine.

Come!!!

I was accepted at Pitt many years ago. They stick freshmen into those round dorm towers where the rooms all remind you of a wedge of pie.

However I wound up at IUP where it snows every day from September through June.

At least you find things to put into your journal! I always think my life is way too boring, unless something extraordinary happens, which isn't often. I don't seem to have (or maybe I don't seem to remember) those 'funny stories' which many folk recount.

Thanks for sharing your trips with us.

I think you should go to the special occasion (what is a 'homecoming'?)if you feel up to it at the time. Just think of those lovely trees! (One of my ambitions is to see autumnal trees in New England one day - is that anywhere near where you're describing?)

Jules

Pittsburgh already has enough of a reputation without this.

I rather liked Pittsburgh when I was there in 1968. Now it sounds like a bottomless pit(t).

Pittsburgh might be a perfectly nice city - we were only in one part of it. I was complaining more about the way that the University of Pittsburgh really didn't look anything like a university campus...

I mean I've never seen anything quite like that before calling itself a campus, it honestly looked like nothing more than a downtown business district to me. To me, college campuses should have large expanses of grass, trees, and essentially be protective enclaves of learning, with the campus being *obviously* separate from the rest of whatever city they're located in or near.

I expect as campuses enlarge within a city for there to be a few streets through the campus, but this was nothing but streets and high rise buildings. I suppose it might appeal to some people, but I'm afraid we're just country folk, and not used to such big city enviroments.

Boston University and Northeastern University have high-rises, and are mixed in with residential areas. Boston College and Harvard University have sequestered campuses, though. Emerson College, which is right downtown in Boston, is hard to distinguish from its surroundings. Heck, in a densely populated city, large open campuses would be hard to do.

One of the things I liked about Radford when I first visited was the fact that it was so green and open - and I still do appreciate that. It's pretty all year round, even when it's dreary. But there's a definite lack of things to do that are unrelated to around here. And there's nothing down here anyway by virtue of it being a) Appalachia, b) south-western Virginia, and c) generally rural.

Having done a semester in London at a very definitely *urban* university, where the teaching buildings were just converted old buildings, there can be good things about going to uni in a city. For one, there's a heck of a lot more available - both in terms of cultural events and stores/shopping areas. There is always a lot going on, and there are always loads of choices of things to do.

I preferred the city situation, but it really depends on what you like.

I've attended a rural college (University of Massachusetts in Amherst) and a city one (Boston University). The experiences are quite different, though Boston has tree-lined median strips on a lot of its main roads. It also has a common and a public garden and an open area in the Fens. If you feel hemmed in by the tall buildings, you don't have to go far to find an open spot.