Driving from Pittsburgh to Northern Virginia

And back. Uh, here, this is sort of interesting:

The car overstates its mileage by a little bit, but still, 51.1 for a 217-mile ride is probably as good as it’s ever going to get. And, uh — yeah, shoot, I got nothing. Here:

  • There are about 18 different ways to get to the DC/NoVa area that all take about the same length of time. On the way down, I took scenic Highway 51, eventually routing through Uniontown, Cumberland, and Winchester. Took 4:15, got 51.1 mpg.
  • On the way back, I took the Cadillac route: interstates all the way, including the fantastic Pennsylvania Turnpike: 4:15. And 20 extra miles or so and only 46.8 mpg.
  • The car overstates mpg by 2-3 points.
  • When I got off the dumb toll road, the tollbooth lady told me it’d be $7.25, so I handed her a ten, two ones, and a quarter and she says, “Did you know you gave me $12.25?”. I had no comeback for that.
  • If I hadn’t known, would she have denied it ever happened and then not given me the five back? We’ll never know. We’ll never know.
  • The hotel I stayed in for $40/night (plus 20-percent tax) was a real-live, genuine three-star Hilton Garden Inn.
  • While I was there, I went to the Udvar-Hazy part of the National Air & Space Museum, the National Museum of the Marine Corps (they had some new stuff there), Mt. Vernon, and the National Firearms Museum.
  • People who leave Yelp reviews for Bethesda, Md. restaurants are kind of catty. I’m not speaking of myself. Yet.
  • I should have taken the Reader’s Digest book of road trips so I could have hit some highlights on the return trip. There appear to be a lot of forts, battlefields, historic transportation sites, and houses built over waterfalls.

bkd

2 comments

  • Jon Jensen

    I’m jealous. I miss (nearby) road trips in the mid-Atlantic region.