To NORTHEAST!
May 14-16 2023
PART 1
Like my Western trip of 2022, this fact-finding mission was so action-packed that I have to post 2 separate photo shoots. This 10-part shoot covers just the trip's first half. Like 2022, this was a trip of geographic extremes. While 2022 included Washington and Oregon, this trip took us all the way to Maine!
The Northeast was next in the road trip hopper, but the first day of the trip was almost a remake of our 2014 trip. Yet we did exit I-76 onto OH 94 in Wadsworth, Ohio, for gas. That's the home of the Wadsworth wisp - a wisp of soil on the toilet seat at a gas station.
We had to detour on the south of Akron. It looks like someone took a blowtorch to the I-277 shield. It's like when your mail comes half-burned.
A faded I-277 sign.
There were no detour signs to bring us back to I-76, so we were dumped here on US 224.
Great, now we're gonna have that Wendy's ad that sounded like "Winchester Cathedral" stuck in our heads. This is Mogadore Road in Akron.
I-76 crosses Lake Milton in the town of Lake Milton. You can see the Mahoning Avenue bridge.
They famously use New York City as a control city here. But I didn't visit New York City on this trip, so control your oohing and aahing.
This has to be right after we pick up I-80.
Liberty Street near Girard, Ohio. That's the town where the mayor tried to ban MTV, which prompted the only remotely substantive article we were allowed to put in our school paper when I was a high school junior.
I-80 enters Pennsylvania! Pursue your happiness - in the form of lockdowns.
I-80 at I-376. I-376 appeared in Pittsburgh in 1972, but I never really noticed its 2009 extension here along the old PA 60.
I-80 blasts across Pennsylvania. This day was actually a reverse of the last leg of my 1991 trip (when I saw the C. Everett Koop look-alike).
I-80 at I-180. The red crown of the I-180 shield is faded. There was a lot of that on this trip. It reminds me of when red billboards faded in 2020 from neglect.
PA 339 near Mifflinville.
New England is oddly the control point for I-81 to 84.
I-81 in Scranton. The mileage sign foretells a President Biden Expressway. Construction of that freeway started in 1964. Biden was originally from Scranton, and the road was named for him by city council in 2021.
River Street over I-81.
Northwest on River.
Southwest on Stafford.
Northwest on Hickory, the building at left was the hospital where Biden was born. It later became a Jewish religious school. The building is right across from Max Court. (Aw, Max, what a nice dog!)
Continuing on Hickory.
Northeast on Crown. This looks like a regular city street, but there is or was a rail tunnel running underneath. The tunnel was built in 1905 and appears to have been used in recent years only for museum trips.
Southeast on River.
River Street whisks us back to I-81.