June Trip 2014 - Part 6: Barn Finds

After our hike around Shawnee State Park, we climbed back into Serena and turned West onto Route 30-- the old Lincoln Highway.  Our next destination was the Flight 93 Memorial and we didn't really have any expectations of significant scenery until we reached it.

Cruising down the road we blasted past a couple interesting roadside attractions but didn't stop until we passed the HUGE mural.   WHOA.   Did you just see what I saw??  

Here we were, on a nearly deserted two lane road just West of Bedford, quite literally "in the middle of no where" and this HUGE mural covers the entire side of a barn!   We'd already missed several photo ops since leaving my relatives' house (a "support domestic energy" billboard and a old-timey gas station) because I didn't see them in time to stop and decided not to go back...  but this barn was the last straw.   That was a roadside attraction too far-- we were stopping this time!

I alerted my passengers then whipped a double U turn to get back in front of the mural.  As you can see in the pictures this was very disruptive to all the traffic going by.  Not.  I liked playing the "new" Model S off the painted vintage cars-- hoping perhaps at least one was a Model T.  Maybe a Model A?  I guess car names haven't evolved as much as the propulsion systems have!

For as much as cars have changed, the fundamental attraction is the same.  Free and independent travel wherever you want to go.  The Tesla takes "free" to another level as far as fuel and maintenance are concerned but, for now, the "independent" travel is hardly true.  Deviating too far from the Superchargers means LONG charge times... so until the network is built out more (or the range of the car increases to 300+ miles) the "wherever you want to go" remains a bit of a stretch.   Don't get me wrong though-- totally worth it.  Absolutely, positively the best way to drive.   It's electric!

The barn is actually fully decorated on at least three of its sides (I didn't check the far side because it was on private property) so you'd be hard-pressed to miss it completely.  The best murals are the two pictured here.

Continuing West on Route 30 we next came to some fun curves and steep grades that the Tesla went up blisteringly fast (and silent!  So weird and cool!) and culminating in a really sharp turn at the summit.   If you're not quick you'll miss your chance to pull into a shallow overlook to catch an amazing view.  The overlook was once a parking lot for a hotel that was built to look like a glorious ocean liner.   The "visionary" hotel owner thought the fog that often clouded the valleys below looked like waves on an ocean so, of course, he built a hotel on the top of the mountain that looked like a ship.  This is just the obvious course of action and completely not crazy.  Sadly the hotel burned into oblivion a dozen years ago... but if you want to read more about it and see pictures of what once was, just CLICK THIS LINK.

There's also a superb album of old pictures on the Jackson Township Historical Society's Facebook page.

Once past the overlook, we once again found ourselves looking up-- but not to what were expecting to see.  No, we'd entered a Land of Giants....

See the map of this detour and more navigation details by CLICKING HERE.

Click HERE to read about the road trip from the beginning.
Click HERE for Part 7: I'm a Big Fan.

Video clips from the first leg of our road trip-- if you haven't seen them already:

Thanks for visiting us here, CLICK to read more at www.TeslaPittsburgh.com and check out the videos on our YouTube channel at www.YouTube.com/NZCUTR.