Autumn in Pittsburgh

Road trip USA 2009 - 14th day to the end - back in Pittsburgh again

In the morning of the last day of our trip, we were somewhere in the state of Ohio the last state before entering Pennsilvania. I have been driving almost all the night and will continue until we arrive at home. It was so damn cold in the car because of the not really working heating and I was just so tired. Karsten and Johannes were sleeping and I took some pictures out of the car while driving. No more desert now, more forest in the fall's various colours.

Sunrise

After Johannes left the country heading home again, Karsten and I were on a kind of sightseeing tour trough Pittsburgh. Our new car again:

The fall is really beautiful here, I don't know if its the same in Germany. If so it has never catched my eye before like this.

The skyline of Pittsburgh today...

...and 60 years ago. Actually it is just a different camera setting (unfortunately I found out that there is this setting first today, pictures look pretty cool this way), pictures are supposed to look old, kind of worn-out...

oh not this again, our car:

and another car, too many pictures of cars...

We went to a restaurant that used to be a church. In fact it is now not only a restaurant it's also a brewery. You can see the brewing containers and equipment in the background. They brew a lot of different beers there. One of them is brewed where the altar used to be. Also can see there are still monks in the church:

A great restaurant chain and even better confectionery here in the USA is called cheesecake factory. There is delicious food and even better cheesecake. Karsten is eating a burger again, he can't get enough as if we wouldn't have eaten enough of this stuff on our trip. Served with fries and Heinz Ketchup from Pittsburgh.

Yummy cheesecake and the doggy bag because serving are so big here you can impossibly eat he whole thing and a cheesecake.


We have also been to the Hofbräuhaus Pittsburgh, having some beers.

So that's the last picture of our trip this year. It was much too short so we will certainly do this again but with more time and on another route. We have seen a lot but there is so much left to see in this big and versatile country...


so it is not The end ... to be continued!

Road trip USA 2009 - 13th day - on the road - St.Louis - Indianapolis

On the way towards Pittsburgh somewhere before St. Louis,Mo (Missouri):

We had to stop a couple of times to inflate the right rear tire of our car. It had some kind of puncture. It held the air for some hours but not forever. By the way the air allways costs 75 Cents. That is really expensive compared to Germany where it is for free. When this picture was taken I was still sleeping... it was early in the morning and before we stopped I slept in the rear of the car.

The famous National Expansion Jefferson Memorial (Gateway Arch) of St. Louis also known as gateway to the west. It is built to remind of the setlement of the western US:

Some other Memorial in Indianapolis,Indiana where we went by on our way home:

The streets of Indianapolis, steamy:

Road trip USA 2009 - 12th day - breakdown - breakfast - break even (car screwed - solution finding - trade old for older)

Last night our real cool and till now reliable californian car kind of broke down, damn thing;) The engine was still running smoothly but suddenly it began to shake and jiggle as we drove more than about 40MPh. At first it shook only a little bit but as we tried to go on it began to shake like hell and it was getting worse and worse so we had to interupt our journey prematurely. Pittsburgh was still about 2000 miles away. Bull shit! We pulled over the next highway exit.
At this moment we were somewhere before Santa Fe, in the middle of New Mexico. It was in the middle of the night so the first thing that came to our minds was to go to sleep and try to figure something out the next morning. It is always good to sleep on problems to not act with precipitation.
As you can imagine we weren't in the best mood the following morning. Especially Karsten looks very sad that day. Poor guy, ohh;)

Some car in Santa Fe with a lot of political stickers. Some ar quite funny:

As things tourned out this day we were quite lucky under this circumstances because we happened to hit exactley the right highway exit.
When we woke up in the morning the first thing we did was trying to find a mechanic to estimate the damage on our car to know if we can afford to get it fixed. We left the car at the first mechanic we could find and went to have an extensive breakfast or rather brunch while waiting for the estimation.
After finishing our meal we went back to the garage where the guy told us that our car would have some problem with the transmission. This was the worst case. Although the mechanic was not able to figure out the exact problem it was clear that we couldn't afford get the car fixed. It would propably cost a lot more than the car was worth. The mechanic gave us some names of other garages known for their specialized transmission knowledge and adresses of used car dealers in the area. It turned out that there were a lot of them around.
We went to some of the garages to get another opinion about our junk car. Some told us that it would cost only 200$ and it would only take 2 hours to fix it others and that was what it really was said there were a problem with the transmission. A bearing witthin the transmission was broken and to replace this would be more than 800$ or so.
Another soltution had to be found now. Our options were to buy another car but then we still had to get rid of the broken one, to rent a car or to fly home respectively go by train or bus. So it happened that we were looking for another car first because that seemed to be the best way. If we wouldn't have found one we would have rented one, plan B.
Fortunately we were quite lucky that day cause we found a mechanic who was willling to take our car and also provide us with another one he had to sell. Awesome! The other car was 2 years older than ours but the same brand and model, the heating was broken, it had a scratch in the windshild, the slide doors didn't open and the rigth rear tire had some kind of a punture. Despite everything it seemed like a good deal to us, despite the damage on our car the guy was willing to trade, we accepted.
BTW his car was advertised for 1200$ and still running so we couldnt do anything wrong with this deal...So again I was signing a purchasing contract and now we had a new mexican car instead of a carlifornian one. Not bad at all if you consider our situation. The good thing about the car was among others that it has this skull hood ornament which was pretty cool and also it came with tinted windows, it was nice blue instead of khaki brown something, much better!
If you think about it, it was no good deal it was great one!!! By the way it's a Plymouth Grand Voyager SE 3.3l 201Cl V6 from 1990!!! Pretty old but still running. The guy who sold us the ride, pretty big earlobe:

New license palte - new mexico state of enchantment:)

Back on the road in New Mexiko, kind of bleak and deserted:

a typical western mill:

really, reeeaallllly long straight roads

nice picture:

the name says it all:

route 66:

yummy Mountain Dew!

entering Texas, the last state we were driving through today:

Road trip USA 2009 - 11th day - Las Vegas - Hoover Dam and the desert

Our hotel room in the Excalibur in the morning, we are about to leave:

Before going back on the road we were getting some beers, gambling a little bit and riding a rollercoaster near the hotel.


After that we were in a realy good mood and could have stayed in LV for another day or two. Unfortunately we didn't have time cause we were already kind of not right on schedule so we had to leave today. You never know what intervenes your plans as you will see the following day...

Bye bye Las Vegas, it was a short but very nice time we had with you!

Originally we intended to stop by the grand canyon on our way home, also we wanted to see mount rushmore but that was not possible anymore due to our extended stay in San Francisco and LA, so we went straight towards Pittsburgh. Nice desert landscape:

A boat in the desert...

...and an igloo:

Why don't we use this road and why the hell are there so many power poles?

Oh thats why, the road isn't finished yet and there is a hydroelectric power plant, the Hoover Dam. We didn't intend to go by there but it was a nice surprise.

Here we go, back on the road again after the short excursion to the dam. Oh oh things in the mirror are always closer than they appear. That's not good at all in this case:)

Leaving Nevada, entering Arizona. This would have been the state where we could have visited the Grand Canyon.

Weird looking landscape here, I've never seen such a scenery before:

Last stop, make sure you got everything you need, like gas and water...

...and we stopped by. Looks like foreigners from far far away have been here before sometimes or are still around?

Maybe behind this fence?

And really there they are, can you see the UFO in the background?! Come to us little friends we won't do you any harm! They flew away without greeting us:(

The sun sets and this day will soon be over.