I have a DSL connection so thought I’d sneak another post in about our looong drive East. Actually it was a bit shorter than usual as instead of driving to Cambridge we went first to Oyster Bay on Long Island, so it was more like 13 hours as opposed to the 16 or 17 to Boston.
We pulled off the highway in Washington PA, which turned out to be the college town of Washington and Jefferson — Sarah did some excellent chowhounding and sniffed out a surprisingly excellent casual-Italian dinner at an inauspicious-looking downtown grill. Then back on the road until Bedford PA where we avoided the cluster of chain hotels and found a cute little place called Judy’s Motel. I believe this was our actual room, Guest Room #2:
The girls were so excited about being at a hotel and sleeping in the same room with us that they were up until about 10:30. Judy’s (btw “Judy” was a middle-aged man in shorts; I have the sense that Judy lived in the motel’s early days in the 1950s, a couple generations of owners ago) had wireless so we sat on the little bench in front of our room and researched local food and tourism. Sarah discovered Bedford’s Coffee Pot House, which we visited the next morning after breakfast:
We actually have some good shots of us in front of it, but we don’t have our technology in order right now. The only disappointment was that one cannot actually enter the pot.
The girls are pretty good travelers. They tend to settle into the drive and entertain themselves, to some degree. There was one odd moment where they decided they wanted us to stop talking — “don’t say ANYTHING!” — and preferably stop moving as well; Sarah had to insist that in order to drive she needed to move her arms.
Ivan Kreilkamp 
I’m glad that Sarah insisted that she be allowed to move her arms for driving. Sometimes, parenting means that you just have to be tough! Put another dollar into the therapy jar for C & I. Is all I can say.
P.S. Glad the drive went well – glad to hear you guys are having such a good time. Sorry that you couldn’t go into the coffee pot!
Here’s a free idea for book or blog or email group: a self-constructing directory of Routes – e.g. the route from Bloomington to Cambridge – like Blue Highways, but more personalized (“here is where we had coffee, took a swim, patted the llamas, etc.) On the drive from Boston to New York, once a friend dragged me off the highway at New Haven and took me to a diner called something like the Green Lizard (Green Dragon? Green Bullfrog??) very famous and great. Then I forgot it about for about 30 years.