Day 1 - D.C. to Pittsburgh, PA

So I guess you could entitle today "I hate bureaucracy OR how it took me four hours to leave Alexandria." For those of you who take roadtrips, you will undoubtedly be able to empathize with me when I say that leaving always takes longer than it should.

To begin with, let me just say that those of you who live in Alexandria should never order from Golden China on King Street. Yes, they have the best noodles around, but they royally screwed me last night when I was just trying to pack. I ordered roast pork lo mein, like always. It comes sometime later and I sign for it, same as always for the last six months. Well whaddaya know, its fried rice. So I call them up and the girl says 'just eat it, we'll get you some lo mein shortly.' Makes sense I think, this I can handle. Well an hour of starvation goes by and finally I get that wonderful doorbell ring, my noodles had arrived. The guy, however, asks for the rice back...what?!? I tell him that one of my roomates ate it, that i was told to do so, and furthermore what would they do with it anyway? Well apparently, that was me being beligerent and so he called his boss who proceded to yell at me half in Chinese about how I'M the ridiculous one. Off my noodles went, with the guy and I was hungry for quite a while longer.

Anyway, i was ready to go by 11am this morning. I knew that I had two small things to do before I could leave the area. Small thing 1) Go to City Hall and get my 2007 decals. Small thing 2) go to the DMV to get the 2007 plate stickers. I thought it was a little odd that both of these things had expired without any correspondence, but whatever. I knew that I needed to get both of these things done however, since either could cause tickets all the way to California. So I headed to City Hall and talked to the treasurer....turns out their correspondence had been returned...apparently they had me as deceased?!? Since they talk to the DMV, I was apparently a corpse as far as vehicles were concerned. (So I WAS a ghost rider, hurf durf.) I paid the city, then headed over to the DMV. After waiting an hour, I talked to a girl who told me that I couldn't renew my registration until I got an emissions test. I'd never heard of one of these things, but basically it's a ten minute test at a gas station that costs twice what an inspection costs. Woo-hoo. So I got that, and went BACK to the DMV waited ANOTHER hour and finally got my tags. 1pm and I was on the road and needing some Nina Simone to calm me down, but finally VACATION!

After some necessary gas and food, I made my way to Pittsburgh and Jeff's apartment. My wonderful GPS didn't miss a beat. I was able to get my HRC pin and get over to Jeff's, no sweat. This really is a beautiful city, dramatic with mountains and skyscrapers against each other. I spent a wonderful evening watching AI and playing Wii with mister Knox. (Yes Gene, it is ten times more fun that we'd imagined.) Hopefully tomorrow I'll be able to go to the Duquesne Incline, one of the most amazing views in the US, so newsweek says. After that, and maybe one of the Carnegie Museums, it'll be on to Chicago via Indianapolis. Windy City here I come!