Driving down to Pittsburgh……

So i went back out to Cedar point and rode all the rides again at night, the lines were a lot shorter and i rioe everything that id ridden during the day in about half the time! i was back at the hotel for 11pm

Woke around 8, showered and i was on the road leaving the bates motel around 9. Jens, Maria, Thomas and Lars had left Chicago in a rental car the day before and i had no idea where they were, only that we would meet up around Pittsburgh. I thought I'd give them till 10:30 this morning and give them a call and see where they were.

The drive was pretty uneventful, its was Sunday morning and all the roads were quiet. I flicked around the AM band on the radio looking for some good talk radio but couldn't find anything worth listening to so stuck with the hair metal station.

At 10:30 i called Maria to see where they were. They had driven till 11pm the night before and got a Motel 6 somewhere around Cleveland, She gave me the address, i entered it into my Tom-tom and i was only 5 miles away from them! what are the chances ?

10 minutes later i was at their motel waiting for them to get showered and ready for breakfast. They had all crashed straight to sleep when they arrived last night and everyone got a great nights sleep. Next to their car was a car door left on its own in the parking lot, Maria moved their rental car  around the corner and we all tried to explain to Jens that there was only a door in the parking space when they got up to get in the car! didn't work but was worth a try.

We drove across the street to go get breakfast at a Bob Evans. This is a chain restaurant that does breakfasts, lunches and dinners. It’s better than the fast food that some of us had been eating while on the road for the last couple of days.

Upon ordering it was question after question. Id like Sausages please, Patties or Links ? Id like toast please, Wheat, rye, or sourdough. Id like eggs please….etc etc it must have taken us a good 5 minutes for all five of us to actually place our order! What was it Roger says ? “we got choice” !

We hit the road around 12:30, Thomas and Maria in one car and myself, Jens and Lars in my car. We had a few laughs on the way, listened to some Floyd and then listened to some On An Island!! WTF was this music playing in my car!! it was music to fall asleep to! or as Jens put it ,it was music for old people! (is that why you like it Karen ?) i agreed and we changed back to some Floyd.

The beer came out just as fast as the guys drank it!!

   

We then realised the building that we had stopped next to to“water the flowers” was some sort of private club! Jens caught me coming back out but i couldn't tell anyone what was going on in there, or i'd have had to kill them!

   

We set off back towards Pittsburgh and i couldn't help thinking when i was driving that i had this route to do two more times! Due to there been no cheap flights to Boston after the Cleveland show i had to book one  out of Pittsburgh so id be driving to Pittsburgh, then to Cleveland and then back to Pittsburgh! this drive is about 2 1/2 hours each way!

We were meeting Michael, Suzanne, Joe, and Michaels business partner Jack and his wife for dinner in Pittsburgh at 5pm. Jack had booked a nice restaurant that looked over the whole of the city and again it would be a chance to eat some “real” food instead of the road food we had been eating.

As we arrived at the hotel we could see it across the street but i took a wrong turn,a s Maria was following behind she took the same wrong turn too! the roads were pretty quiet and i did a u turn at a junction and pulled up at the lights ready to drive straight across to the hotel. It was only when the guy in a car coming towards us pulled a strange face that i realised i was on the wrong side of the road!!! its the first and only time I've EVER done this! i quickly reversed and pulled in behind Marias car. Will still missed the turning and had to drive round the block again!

The hotel we wanted to get to!                Lars grateful we got there safely with my driving!

We checked in, freshened up and hit the bar, just one Long Island for me before dinner and even that was too much, it went straight to my head and gave me an instant buzz! We called the hotel shuttle and he gave us a ride to the place we were going to eat, Coal Hill Steakhouse.

He dropped us at the bottom of a hill and we had to take an incline ride to the top, this was kinda cool and gave us a view of the city as we went up.

   

Deer we passed as going up the hill!!

The view from the restaurant was amazing, we had a table right next to the window and you could see the whole of Pittsburgh, the football and baseball stadiums and all the bridges over the rivers. As you've probably guessed this was an ideal time for me to do one of my multi picture panorama shots, see below:

The food was nice, mine was a touch cold to be honest but the steak and the waffle cut sweet potato fries were excellent! as were the Vodka and strawberry lemonades! Joe managed to find his way to the restaurant after being stuck in traffic for a while and we made him a plate of food up from our leftovers!

After dinner,  Michael, Suzanne, Jack and his wife all headed to the show in their car , Joe did the same and we called the hotel shuttle to pick us up again.

Going back down the incline from the restaurant.

 

Shuttle bus dropped us back at the hotel, we grabbed our things for the show and then headed up to the will cal window to pick up tickets.

More pictures here from the day:

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