On today's list — An Elegant Sufficiency

Our plans for today originally included a list of museums and galleries in the city; those that were a little too far to explore on foot and for which the car would be a more comfortable alternative. But whilst putting the list together last evening, my Hero discovered what we ought to have guessed. Monday is not a good day to visit museums and galleries, most of which are closed.

So the Warhol, the Mattress Factory and the Frick will all have to wait until tomorrow, whilst we work through a different list today.

Once we’d escaped the canyon of buildings by the hotel, we were in glorious sunshine, just like the other morning and the bright yellow Seventh St Bridge - the Andy Warhol Bridge - looked great against the blue sky. I loved seeing the reflection in the bonnet of the car too.

We drove north today, out through the suburbs into a more rural area with German-sounding names. The first small town was Saxonburg, neat and tidy with every house and lamppost trimmed for Christmas already.

As we drove, we mused on how it must be to live in a community where the decorations are taken so seriously. If our chosen decorations happened to be a single inflatable Christmas tree on the lawn, would that be interpreted as passive-aggressive alongside all the lavish swags and hand-made trimmings? Is there some kind of protocol, perhaps?

Our next point on the map was Butler - county town and identified on a sign as “home of the Jeep”. Considerably larger than any of the surrounding towns, this was clearly a centre for business and industry.

We were here because someone had recommended a large papercrafts store here and having marked it on our map, my Hero engineered a detour.

How very glad I was that he did! Not only was this the most enormous, well-stocked shop I have visited in a long time, everything was neat, organised and in pristine condition too. Amy, the owner, was delightfully friendly and had created the most extraordinary projects to demonstrate her vast range of products. Had I had a bottomless suitcase and an unlimited bank balance, then I’d have still been there. As it was, I made one or two selections - a couple of things I’ve been in search of forever (eg large coil bindings for my travel journals) and some pretty papers for a future project too. What an amazing store!

From Butler, we drove through a couple of small towns, each with traditional homes with porches and cute main streets. We noted the signs for “Washington’s Trail 1753” and resolved to find out more about that (see link) since we seemed to be following the same route.

Next stop on the list was to be Harmony PA, another small, well kept town with all Christmas decorations in place too. We parked the car to stretch our legs a bit, finding ourselves right outside the Lagerhaus Bakery.

As it was lunchtime, we felt we might indulge in something - sweet for me, savoury for my Hero. The Hello Dolly Bar I chose was reminiscent of the Picnic Slices our landlady used to bake for us when I lived on the Isle of Wight - a sweet mixture including coconut and chocolate. Strangely, her name was Dolly, too!

As we sat in the corner of the cafe, we watched as other customers came and went. Everyone seemed to know each other - asking how the chickens are, ordering a pie for Thursday (Thanksgiving) and generally catching up with friends. Another close-knit community, then.

The Harmony Museum, in common with its larger, more urbane neighbours was also closed on a Monday.

Forgive the blur, please, but no sooner had we left Harmony than we were entering Zelienople and I was keen to catch that Z sign. I had read about the town before we came, so knew that it had been named after a young woman, Zelie. I had pictured her as a bright young thing, so imagine my surprise when I saw her portrait!

I’m surely being unfair to dear Zelie, who was undoubtedly a beauty of her time, don’t you think?

We happened to be caught in a queue of traffic right outside her former home.

The rest of the town was moderately interesting but spotting an increasingly rare sighting of a Barnes and Noble bookshop , we decided to take a break in a favourite location.

We each made our selections and found chairs to sit and peruse our findings. These magazines have become so expensive these days - $14,99 in one case - that I am glad of an opportunity to see what’s what before I decide which to buy.

Bookshop business complete, we were sliding into the afternoon and beginning to flop a little. My Hero decided to forego the pleasure of a visit to Michaels in favour of sitting in the car with his book. I snagged a bargain or two with my 40% off coupon (though when that’s restricted to “regular priced items only” and almost the whole shop is on special offer of 40% off already, the coupon becomes a bit of nonsense)