Trip to Concord, Ohio

Last week we decided to take a trip to visit Gerry's relatives in the Concord, Ohio area.  The only time we could make the trip was over Labor Day weekend and that gave us a little concern due to holiday traffic.  Leaving on Friday made it a little easier, so we called and told them we were on our way.  

Most of the trip was on the PA & Ohio turnpikes and the PA portion had very heavy traffic all the way.  It was moving a little above the speed limit so it wasn't a problem except for the stray nuts who wanted to drive 10-15mph over the speed limit.  Thankfully the PA State Trooper "talked" to a number of them along the way.  One in particular blew by us like he was late for his wedding.  He was stopped and then about 45 minutes later he flew by us again.  I guess he didn't learn his lesson very well.

The east bound lanes around Pittsburgh were at a stand still for a couple miles due to an accident.  By the looks of things it would have been an hour or more delay for those folks.  Hope nobody was killed or seriously injured, but the fast lane had 4-5 cars tangled up when we went by.  The firetrucks and ambulances hadn't arrived yet, so it must have just happened a minute or two before we saw it.

We did run into some rush hour traffic around Middlefield, OH and that slowed us down a bit.  I thought I'd let the new Tom Tom GPS direct us to Gerry's cousin's house and that was a mistake.  It took us off the turnpike early and had us making left and right turns on country roads for almost an hour.  One such place they directed us through was Middlefield.  Check out the traffic mess below.

I could read the lips on the driver to the right of us and she was saying "come on buddy, move over I want to pass on the shoulder".

It's hard to detect, but there are 4 buggies right in front of us and then another one at the crest of the hill.  I will say they moved along at a pretty good clip.

This guy came careening around the corner to merge into traffic.  They seem to think they have the right of way even if you are going 35mph on the main road. 

Middlefield had a sign as you entered town stating that it is the 4th largest community of Amish people in the world there.  I believe it, since we must have seen 30-40 buggies all over the place.  It looked like a neat little town and we may stop there on the way back if we can find it again.

Joanne was waiting for us in the driveway and we said our hellos and got our hugs and then went in and collapsed.  It was a long day with getting up early and then the drive.  We chatted for a while and had some dinner and then chatted even more.  Finally about 11:30 both of us were showing the signs of tiredness and we headed off to bed. 

That was our day, how was yours?