Accidental East Coast Discoveries

by leigh - February 26, 2008

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Somewhere between "damn, wrong exit" and "oh, here's the road again" is that frustrating, cursing, yelling time known as "I'm really lost and I don't know this city at all." Usually this just results in road rage, but sometimes I end up finding something interesting.

Washington, DC - Ripley Center

I stopped by this seriously tiny looking building simply out of curiosity. Amongst all of these massive Smithsonian museums, it seemed odd that this little kiosk stood largely unvisited. “Brochures?” I wondered, “Maps?” But no. Turns out this weird little building is just the entryway to a massive underground international art gallery. Pieces come from other D.C. Smithsonian collections, and as the museum is a little weird to get to, rather empty of patrons.

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Pennsylvania Road Dots

I’m driving down the road, middle-of-nowhere Pennsylvania, minding my own business when suddenly these gigantic white painted circles are all over the road, stretching as far as I can see. “What the hell?” I wonder aloud… and then I see the sign – “Keep min. 2 dots apart.”

In one of the strangest road policies I’ve ever seen, parts of Pennsylvania actually require a two dot distance from the car ahead of you. These dots aren’t exactly close to one another. You could easily fit between four and six moving cars in a two-dot stretch of road, depending on how much you like to tailgate. Seriously, if every car was two dots away nobody would ever get anywhere… traffic would be stretched across the entire state.

My standing joke for the next hour was “uh-oh, that truck is only half a dot away from me – back off! Back off!”

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The Lost City of Pittsburgh

Many moons ago, when I was touring colleges, we ended out in Pittsburgh. Along Forbes Ave lies both the University of Pittsburgh and Carnegie Mellon. Arriving well after dark, my father and I decided to just drive past the schools a few times, out of something like boredom and curiosity. One-way roads are, of course, everywhere, and so circling back to begin the route again required driving through a bit of residential land. We made a turn south to get back onto the main road, and instead ended up going down.

Down and down and down we headed, on a narrow dark road. Somehow I expect to start seeing prehistoric trees and dinosaurs like from “The Lost World.” Looking up, there are bridges that I don’t remember crossing and we’re still heading down this narrow crevasse. Suddenly, it evens out, ending with a small apartment building and a street light.

After a few seconds of confused silence, we turned the car around and went back up, taking a different road back to Forbes. Apparently this ditch has a name amongst locals, I prefer to think of it as the Lost City of Pittsburgh. It’s funner that way.

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: by Hot Mama 05/05/2008 Reply

HIGH LEIGH11 MY GUIDE IS NEXT TO YOUR’S!

: by eye2wild 04/25/2008 Reply

I love your writing style…and the dots? That is just too bizarre to imagine. Glad I don’t live there…I’d go nuts!

: by libertyplace 04/24/2008 Reply

Hello, Leigh- Thanks for the comment on my Phillies and Post-Game Revelry Guide. Being a Philadelphian, I was particularly intrigued by the Pennsylvania phenomena you described in this one. Perhaps you might find this link interesting, in terms of the origins of the dots: http://www.roadwaysafety.org/RSF%20Reporter/1st…