Monday morning, we woke at the KOA and a prepared for our final leg home – south towards Pittsburgh and then hooking up with the Pennsylvania Turnpike and heading east. We’d go as far as the Downington exit, then get off, and traverse the usual route back home – south on Route 100 through Exton, my old home town, and then catch US 202 south through Northern Delaware, around Wilmington, and back over the Delaware Memorial Bridge to Salem.
The first leg was easy – Interstate 79 from Grove City about 30 miles, where, in the bustling ‘burb of Cranberry, we exited 79 and on-ramped 76, and took the ‘pike around to the east of Pittsburgh proper.
The usual construction and delays, nothing we weren’t used to living in the Delaware Valley. Rolling hills, lots of trees, and traffic was light.
This part of the turnpike rolls over and around the dozens of hills and valleys of the Alleghenys – sometimes they go around, sometimes they cut through, and if the hill is big enough, they blow their way through in a tunnel.
First one is the Tuscarora, near Willow Hill, it’s a little over a mile long.
The second tunnel, Kittatinny and third, the Bear Mountain, are actually just about 500 yards apart, and when you come out of the Bear, the eastbound driver is treated to one of my favorite panoramas along the entire st Coast, where you are between valleys, and it seems like the whole of Pennsylvania is laid out before you. It’s really cool.
We pass Harrisburg and over the Susquehanna River, and then it’s only an hour or two to our turnpike exit at Downingtown.