Pittsburgh Weekend - 12 Counties

Lackawanna, Wyoming, Sullivan, Lycoming, Tioga, Potter, McKean, Cameron, Elk, Fayette, Cambria, Blair

Brandy and I spent the past weekend in Pittsburgh for their local CS CouchCrash. It was a great time with great people, but more pertinent to this blog, I collected 12 more counties on the way. I had always been curious to see the very northern stretch of PA - you know, the real back woods - and this whole county thing gave me the added incentive to do it on this trip.
We left Thu night with another CSer, Barbara, who was our only rider due to the unfortunate loss of our friend Juan to weaksaucedness. We got a late start as usual and drove into the night. My first new county was Lackawanna, which we entered via I-380, already fairly late in the night. After Scranton we went through a maze of exits to get on US 6 and passed under this huge bridge way above us. It was actually kind of creepy since it came out of nowhere above this random neighborhood, and Brandy urged me to "get outta here."
After Lackawanna, we entered Wyoming and started to leave civilization. The last remnants of humanity vanished as we turned onto Rt 87 and passed a huge power plant. Off into the woods and the night we went. In fact, we weren't to see another car for at least 20 miles. There was a major construction project going on, but luckily the road was base paved so we could still go fast. Unluckily, the signage, or lack thereof, somehow got us off of 87, and then somehow back onto 87 just as miraculously as we'd left it. It almost felt like we'd just gone in a big circle, but then we came across an intersection that obviously hadn't been seen yet. One good bit of signage though was a massive changeable message sign that said, "BUMP AHEAD, Slow down NOW!!" It commanded attention and boy did they mean it! The bump was of unprecedented proportions and a 60 mph hit would have been catastrophic.
The little signage-related detour may have put us into Bradford County for all I know, but the next verified county was Sullivan. We camped here at World's End State Park. We were unfortunately in too big a hurry the next morning to check it out but it's supposed to be beautiful. There had been some major flooding in the area and to get to the park we had to cross a closed section of Rt 154 where half the road had washed away. In the night, the precipice gaped with an eerie darkness that played as if there was nothing under the remaining asphalt. The strange feelings and creepiness of the things around you during a long late-night drive are really quite unique as the drive and fatigue stretch out all thoughts and perceptions into long, stringy twangs of reality. I have been fatigued in many situations, but these twisted feelings are unique to distance driving.
After a short and chilly night, we got up a bit later than we thought gracias a mountain shadows and moved on as quickly as possible. I had created a sly route that would have gotten the corners of both Lycoming and Bradford via secondary routes, but this was not to be. I was traveling 154 and did some exploring of a side road that could have been what I was searching, but was unsigned. It was closed, so we continued on, only to somehow come back to Rt 87! Poor signage had once again managed to deflect me from my intended route. Thwarted, I decided to just continue on and give up on Bradford, but keep for the Grand Canyon of PA. I chose to avoid secondary routes this time, but was rewarded with another bridge out and a long detour.
We reached Tioga County shortly before rejoining my planned route at Liberty, PA, where we also chose to breakfast. I questioned an old and friendly fellow at the gas station, with whom a noisy and contentious debate would have likely arisen had politics been brought up, but breakfast was the point of the conversation and it remained jovial. He suggested a place in town that turned out to be mediocre, but cheap and filling and very reminiscent of Wisconsin northwoods owing to the abundance of flags, cheesy "a good friend is" type sayings, and men in camouflage.
After breakfast we hit the Grand Canyon of PA, which would have been more impressive had it not been given a bit of a misnomer. It was very pretty, but certainly not deserving of the moniker.
Next came Potter, where I started to notice, especially after leaving Rte 6, untended apple trees spilling their fruit everywhere. It seems apples grow exceptionally well in these parts and many trees were left as the population thinned in recent decades. I decided a huge sack of apples would be a great gift for our host. We kept trying to find the perfect tree that wasn't obviously in someone's yard and were getting frustrated, until I turned down my last little sidetrack to get McKean County. This included crossing an amazing little one-lane iron bridge to get to Gardeau Rd, which conveniently skirted into the county. Here we saw an old lady picking apples so I decided to stop and ask her what the situation in the area was. She had a shirt full of apples and about six trees. She told me she had more than she needed and I could take as much as I wanted. While picking, an old guy from across the street insisted we take his apples because they were so delicious. He was right, and we took a couple pecks, although we probably could have walked out with a couple bushels and not made a dent.
We then entered Cameron. At this point I was getting ready to be getting on with it and nothing stands out from passing through either Cameron or Elk before reentering the realm of previously attained counties.
Some highlights of Pittsburgh include meeting our hosts, one of whom is really into dorky board games and has Puerto Rico and Dominion and the other who is really into maps and actually might know more counties by memory than I do; a bike tour of sevaral neighborhoods and biking over the Hot Metal Road bridge; a bonfire right in the city on an old concrete circular platform in the river behind a factory; sleeping in our van because our hostess' boyfriend gave us a key that didn't work; taking over an entire restaurant for a potluck brunch; the Cathedral of Learning at the U of Pittsburgh, the second tallest education building in the world and it actually looks like a cathedral http://www.tour.pitt.edu/tour-080.html; the Glass Castle, which looks a bit cheesy from afar, but is actually really cool to be in - it reminds me for some reason of an ice level in Mario; Gina, my van, dominating the shit out of Canton Avenue, a 37% grade - the steepest in the US and perhaps the world http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canton_Avenue http://googlesightseeing.com/2009/06/the-worlds-steepest-streets/.
On the way back we found a rideshare in Somerset, which meant we'd miss Indiana County, but we could get Fayette County. I actually tried to have a go at getting Greene in the far SE corner of the state, but just didn't have enough time, even taking the boonedoggle Rte 43 tollway, and I had to bail at the end and just head over to Fayette. The drive across Fayette was absolutely stunning as we passed from valley to valley with grand views. Fayette is also the home of Frank Lloyd Wright's Fallingwater, but we did not want to pay the $20 to enter.
After picking up our rideshare, we hopped on the freeway and it was dark before we got to our next new county, Cambria. Nothing of note here... we ate at a Wendy's and it was predictably gross. We had a surprise in our final county, Blair, as I-99 north was inexplicably closed and we had to figure out how to get around. I flirted with the thought of taking the long way and getting Snyder County, which will be bunyon in my efforts sitting in the middle of PA on the way to nothing, surrounded by visited counties. In the end we took a side road around the blockage and got home at a reasonable hour.
I wish I had a count of total counties, but there are still a few states left where I have to do some more research to figure out. I can say that my PA count is up to 61 out of 67. My next new counties will likely be gotten when I go to VA for Thanksgiving.