We left the hotel around 11am, and were to late to catch the breakfast in the restraunt. Liz got a couple of cups of coffee and a muffin or two from the host in the restraunt. The buffet looked good, but I really wanted to get going. Liz munched in the car, and it was a little difficult to balance the styrofoam boxes and the cups in the car.
We drove back towards the house one last time. Liz popped a few pictures of my old house, and then we took off over the hill towards the Pennsylvania Turnpike.
On the turnpike, we cut southeast towards the center of the state. The turnpike crosses the state left to right (plus an extension north from Harrisburg towoards Allentown). But the mountains force the road south through the center of the state, near the Penn Highlands.
The turnpike drive was easy, of course. I was little nappy, so I tried to drive agressively to keep my spirits up and to prevent dozing off. There wasn't much traffic, either, even though it was a Sunday.
At the Donegal exit, we grabbed PA-711 south (where it hits PA-31) towards Melcroft. Liz wasn't feeling so hot, so we stopped at a petting zoo where she could use the bathroom. She took a while, so I was hoping she'd feel better when she was done. I got bored waiting, and wanted to browse the gift shop at the petting zoo, but found that the entrance was chained off. I had to talk with the clerk to hop the chain to the other side of the passage and get directly to the gift shop.
Liz finally came back, and she really did feel better. That was a relief for me, as I wanted her to feel better and have fun and not be sick.
We bounded further south towards Fallignwater on PA-381. This is the house that Frank Lloyd Wright built for The Kaufmann family back in the thirties. It's the one where the whole house rests on a big creek in the woods, cantalevered over the water. The sound of the water permiates the whole house, and the thin rock walls run grooves horizontally to accent all the horizontal trim and the fixtures in the building.
The house is run by a Pennsylvanian conservancy that handles tours and maintenance and deals with the rennovation of the building, which is slowly eroding as the rebar in the concrete stretches. The tours are actually given by interns who suffer with thick Pittsburgh accents. At moments in the tour, it was hard not to laugh at what was happening.
Things were a little touchy with driving as we weren't perfectly sure where the place was and hadn't seen much in the way of signs since leaving the freeway. Finally, we were rewarded with a right turn into the secluded driveway that led to a payment booth, much like you'd find at the entrance to a state park.
The tour was a blast. There were bunches of people milling throughout the pavilion, which had a gift shop and restrooms and a tiny museum. The gift shop had some great books, but also had actual pieces of Frank Lloyd Wright furniture,
We followed PA-653 east all the way to Somerset. We caught up with a pick-up truck that drove pretty wildly. There was a child or two in the back, and the mother seemed to be changing the daiper of one of the kids while the driver sailed forth at sixty miles an hour. The narrow two-lane road was pretty narrow; it cut through the edge of Laurel Hill State Park, and wound around a little. It would've been a real treat if I could've passed that screwy truck just a little earlier.
Just after the Breezewood exit, I showed liz the wierd stairs on the side of the road. When I went back to Hartford from visiting my Parents in Pittsburgh, I would often stop here and eat a little picnic. The stairs are on the eastbound side, about a mile from the Breezewood exit. The handrail has finally rusted I have no idea why the stairs are there; maybe they have something to do with the big section of the turnpike that was abandoned after some new construction. But it's a very interesting place to go because you can see the valley very, very well.
When we stopped to walk up the steps, a trooper stopped behind my car. We turned to look at him, and then he took off without even opening his door. About ten miles later, we found him sitting on the side of the road looking for customers.
As we went further and further east, we were more and more hungry. I kept promising Liz we'd stop at the next exit, but there are few signs and it seemed like there weren't going to be services. There probably were, but for the inconvenience of leaving the turnpike I wanted to be sure. Driving across country, but I'm kind of lazy.
We finally decided to bail out at East Harrisburg; there was a Pizza Hut, so we could have the salad bar and a little pizza. I parked the car and stretched. As Liz and I way made our way in, I walked around the back of the car. In the waning light, I realized that the back of the car wasn't only dirty, but it was completely covered with oil.
We looked under the car and found a huge puddle of oil in just the three or four minutes I was stopped. That's it: after all these trips across country, my luck had finally run out. I had a major mechanical problem and had to abort my trip. Liz would have to fly out of Harrisburg and then I'd get the car fixed and either drive it back or fly back myself and have it trucked back when it was done.
Cripe. $120,000 for a car, and here I am at Pizza Huttrying to figure out what my options for recovery might be.
Liz and I discussed our options over our pizza and guessed at what would happen. I figured it would be best to try to sleep right here, and then find a dealer tomorrow morning to fix it. We checked into a Day's Inn in Middleville. The hotel was an armpit; as fate had it, the only room left was a smoking double on the first floor. It was tiny and damp.
We got out a list of dealers that (ironically) I helped format and sort and post to the Internet a few months ago. There were a couple of dealers in Pennsylvania—one here in Harrisburg, one in Allentown, and one near Philadelphia. I finally found another ad in the Yellow Pages for the local Harrisburg dealer, and it said their service department opened at 7am.
I couldn't sleep. I couldn't move. It was going to be a rough night. I called Porsche a couple of times (and later found they'd never return my call, the fuckers). Through the night, I slept lightly. I got up a few times to go to the bathroom; I puked once and had massive diahreah the other times.
Last modified on 26 June, 1999.