I have really enjoyed my time in DC, but this morning it was time to get on with my trip and make my way North-West to the shores of Lake Erie.
My original plan was to make all my travel during this trip by rail. However, Amtrak’s “creative planning” came in the way, and since I really did not want to miss the Cleveland Museum of Art I decided that Art would trump Train this one time. The problem is that Amtrak’s service from Washington DC to Chicago (the “Capitol Limited”) does stop in Cleveland, but it takes almost 11 hours and arrives in Cleveland around 3am. Considering the museum only opens at 10 am, that clearly would have left way too many hours to kill… So I ended up renting a car 🙂 .
While it is obviously a pain having to focus on the road instead of the scenery around, driving from DC to Cleveland only takes about 6 hours, with the added bonus that I also get to swing by Detroit before making my way to Chicago.
What I was not expecting was however how incredibly beautiful the scenery would be on the way. From the shores of the Potomac into Maryland and then the hills of Pennsylvania, with the shifting green of the forests and the farms, and a sky that would have made Magritte envious, with clouds looking like peaceful bombers in formation escorting me along the way. A truly magnificent experience! Sadly, having to drive meant I missed the most amazing photo opps, but hopefully these will do 🙂
Also, in true American spirit, the gas station where I stopped for coffee was blasting Springsteen as if there were no tomorrow 🙂 .
The other great surprise of the day was the break I decided – just last night – to take on the way to check out the Carnegie Museum of Art in Pittsburgh. The city itself – famous otherwise for its steel and Heinz Ketchup – is actually very pretty, with small houses scattered around the hills as the  Monongahela and the Allegheny rivers come together to form the Ohio river.
The Museum has a very interesting and varied collection, ranging from the French masters to quite a few great American pieces, including some of the artists like Dewing and Hart Benton that I have got to learn better in the past days in DC. The museum also has a pretty nice collection of design objects, including some lovely stained glasses from Tiffany’s.
The Carnegie Museum of Art however also shares the building with a Natural History Museum, and as I walked into the next section I suddenly remember why I had heard about the Pittsburgh museum before… Namely for its absolutely astonishing collection of Dinosaur skeletons and fossils, often referenced in many documentaries.
I’ll be honest, I am typically not easy to impress. But as I turned the corner and suddenly faced 2 massive Apatosauruses (and a T-Rex on their tail) my jaw dropped and a pretty loud “Oh Shit!” did come out of my mouth… The couple next to me laughed pretty hard 🙂
