In my endeavors to entertain myself over the past few weeks (sans wife and squirt), I have been traveling around my new home. The landscape of the surrounding area is surprisingly similar to that of Oregon, with really one a single outstanding difference: no mountain.

The numerous parks, scenic drives and quaint little towns that litter the landscape of this Northeastern state are all uniquely similar to one another in some fashion or another. Bradford (for which I have no pictures yet) is a funny little town. With a population of about 7,000 people, it has a wide variety of housing, peoples and yet it has no real variety of restaurants. I know this first hand, since I have no home. As of today, Litsa and I are officially homeless, having no property deeded to our names. Being homeless as I am, I am in the unique position to eat-out every single ever-lovin' meal. I have eaten at almost every establishment within a 15 mile radius, and a few quite a ways away from that. Lots of beef.

The call of the road has taken me to Erie Buffalo, Smethport, Warren, Olean and many places in between. The Kinzua Bridge is one of the most impressive structures I have seen in quite some time. On the way to Smethport, this was (and could quite very well be) the tallest and longest railroad trestle in the United States. Built over a hundred years ago it has seen many changes and even survived a train wreck in the middle of the span, to be rebuilt to support larger and heavier trains. Unfortunately it is closed to pedestrian traffic, so I have no photos from the bridge.

Most recently, I spent the weekend with a my old friend Ted, in Virginia. We spent the most of the weekend plodding around the DC Metro area.

We started out at the Pentagon on Saturday afternoon, and after a brief run-in with a very... dedicated? Sergeant, we were on our way. You see this Army dude, didn't take kindly to me shooting images of the Metro station under the Pentagon, so he gave me a choice (nice of him I thought), to go downtown (and presumably have Dan-o book me), or delete the photo I just shot... easy to figure which came next... delete baby. Unscathed and not easily deterred, Ted and I boarded the Metro and off we went. Getting Downtown in mere moments, we stepped into the midday sun and into DC.

This town is utterly amazing. You really have no idea what it is really like until you actually go. It's huge! Not in just size, but in absolute scale. It's like being 5 years old, you feel immeasurable in size against these mammoth buildings, statues, and structures; which according to my trusty guide; is precisely the point.

It was like being in Scotland again on I and Litsas last trip, it was all amazing. I could've spent a couple more days there just standing in amazement. The city is quite unique in it's construction and how it handled its function. For instance, in the early years of indoor plumbing, the sewer was all pumped into a holding pool inside the city limits, actually it is the "pond" that the Jefferson monument is on the rim of, and it is pictured above. All I have to say is Eeewwwwww!. I bet that was a real good time in the summer. Needless to say it is significantly cleaner these days. Heading around to the west side of town we walked around the White House, and took pictures of the back and front. The back is actually the most recognized side; go figure.

We polished off the afternoon with Washington capitals game. This was the first NHL game I had been to, and it was quite exciting. Once we got passed the 4 dim-wits (who, consequently were Philly fans) behind us, the game really was good. The Caps stomped the Flyers, who were apparently playing like peewee leaguers, 4 to 1. Oh yeah, and those idiot who were yelling about the "wek" Caps fans, left at the end of the 2nd period. But they were "dedicated" Flyers fans.

Oh yeah, and you can scope the pictures here.