We completed the first leg of our trip to St. Louis when we reached another Washington, this one near Pittsburgh, about 250 miles from home. This is our third time stopping here in the last 18 months, and each time we had dinner at the Union Grill, which never ceases to amaze me.

The Union Grill is entered by descending 5 uninviting steps on the side of an old brick building that looks like it has been abandoned. But when you open the door, you find yourself in what must be the busiest restaurant in the known galaxy. A Wednesday night and its several rooms are filled to the gills and for most of the evening there is an overflow crowd waiting for their tables. How they do this kind of business is beyond me.

The downside? The downside is that it is about 45 windy degrees in Washington PA, and we are not fully prepared.

When we left Big Washington at about 10 yesterday morning, the temperature scheduled to climb into the sixties and it was beautiful. We had picked the very best day possible to drive up I-270 and across I-70. The sky was blue with occasional dramatic cloud formations, and the colors along the sides of the road and up in the hills were spectacular.

But wouldn’t you know it. You get to Breezewood and it all changes. It becomes overcast, chillier and the leaves lose their sheen. By the time we reached Bedford, everything was gray and the temperature was 54. We went to The Pub for lunch, where we had eaten before, but the waiter disappeared after giving us water and we lost patience and he lost customers. We went across the street to a very casual Mexican restaurant, Don Patron’s and had a satisfying meal for half the price.

Bedford is a upscale town which has been around so long that it played a role in the French and Indian War in the mid 1700s. This is the only building from that period that remains. It now houses an upscale food shop.

But later George Washington actually did sleep here.

And Bedford has a large number of well maintained 19th century houses. Like these.

We spent almost an hour at Founders Crossing, a very very very very large two level store, filled with crafts on the upper level and antiques below. As Union Grill might be the world’s busiest restaurant, Founders Crossing is undoubtedly the galaxy’s biggest store of it kind. The antiques level has an inexhaustible supply of almost everything. The crafts level has an extraordinary amount of items, not one of which I would like or need in my house. For example, you need a hand painted saw?

But there is more to get in Bedford, such as

We skipped this. The idea of sauerkraut in a plastic box in our car for ten days wasn’t very appealing.

The drive from Bedford to Washington PA on old Route 30, the Lincoln Highway is interesting for many reasons. It is just too bad that the weather dimmed the changing leaves and extraordinary visas, and that at about 3 p.m., our dashboard said it was 42 outside.

Of course the best thing about today is that we avoided hearing or following the news. Did anything happen? Did we sink a ship in the Pacific? Did we sanction Russia? Are we building a ballroom bigger than the White House? Ha ha. Hypothetical questions, all.