The Newtown Pentacle

Monday

– photo by Mitch Waxman

It’s a pretty long drive, Pittsburgh to NYC. Give or take, it’s about 370 miles, which is an all day sort of affair. On the way to Pittsburgh, my pal Max and I used the northern route, which was picturesque and scenic. On the way back, we used the southern route along the Pennsylvania Turnpike, which was tedious and somewhat difficult driving. The tedious part comes in because of road work, which narrows the high speed road to two rather meager lanes, which is where the difficult part comes in. At one point, we encountered a 40 miles long stretch of concrete jersey barriers on either side of us, and the block of traffic we were moving with included dozens of semi tractor trailer trucks which were moving at 70-100 mph. No fun.

Max and I split the driving up, and whenever he was behind the wheel, I had the camera in hand and set up for high speed captures. The shots in today’s post are “snapshots” randomly captured along the route, rather than composed photos.

– photo by Mitch Waxman

There’s a few spots along the Pennsylvania Turnpike where they just dug out a tunnel going through the base of a mountain rather than routing the road over it. I doubt there’s ever been anyone more qualified to do this sort of thing than mid 20th century Pennsylvanians, given their history in the mining industry. About a mile in advance of these tunnels, you start seeing signs telling drivers to remove their sunglasses and turn on their headlights. That’s how long these tunnels are.

Saying that, it’s really something when you exit one and “boom” – there’s a valley with heavily wooded slopes leading into farmland. Beautiful sights.

– photo by Mitch Waxman

Oddly, we didn’t see too much of this sort of thing. The fellow who committed one of his fields to free advertising for a NYC Real Estate huckster’s political ambition – pictured above – seemed to have a property bisected by the highway. On the other side of the road was a decrepit semi trailer which had a hand painted “Trump” logo which was accompanied by the screed “God. Guns. No Socialism.”

This of course, pissed me off. There is no business sector in these United States more dependent on “socialism” than farming. There’s tax benefits, direct handouts of money and supplies, oversight, price controls… Honestly…

Whatever, opinions are like assholes, everyone’s got one and I’m not interested in seeing or hearing about anyone else’s.

– photo by Mitch Waxman

As the day wore on, we passed through Pennsylvania’s Capitol Harrisburg and the very rural central section of the state that’s referred to as “Pennsyltucky.” I had one of my biannual McDonald’s double cheeseburgers in this section, and killed a couple of dozen Spotted Lanternflies while we were gassing up the car. Apparently, Harrisburg is the national “ground zero” for this invasive species’ infestation.

Soon, we were hurtling along at 70 mph again, heading towards the Atlantic coast of America, and the archipelago Megalopolis which squats rudely along its edge against the ocean.

– photo by Mitch Waxman

I was actually surprised at how many horses I saw. I mean, I wasn’t expecting not to see livestock, but usually it’s cows or pigs or maybe sheep. Horses.

My pal Max handled the drive from Harrisburg to New Jersey’s Allentown. From there, I took over the wheel and dealt with the maddening set of pinch point barriers that multiply and fester as you get closer and closer to NYC.

– photo by Mitch Waxman

The one above is the last shot from this excursion. Somewhere in the blue mountains, which are, as you can see – actually kind of blue.

Something different tomorrow, at this – your Newtown Pentacle.

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