Michigan - Detroit

“If you sifted all Detroit in a wire basket the beater solid core of dregs couldn’t be better gathered.” (232)

“The moment we were in the new Chrysler and off the New York the poor man realized he had contracted a ride with two maniacs, but he made the best of it and in fact got used to us just as we passed Briggs Stadium and talked about next year’s Detroit Tigers.” (234)

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Detroit consists of lots of beat up American cars. I only know this because I couldn't help noticing how many domestics compared to imports are on the road in that city, though it makes perfect sense. There was also some indistinguishable classic rock show going on downtown (or somewhere near there), which kind of fit the profile I had for Detroit. Perhaps hearing that music is why the first comparable city that popped into my head was Pittsburgh; central to Detroit's identity is Ford/GM/Etc., while central to Pittsburgh's identity is football (specifically the steelers). Aesthetically, though, and in my opinion, Pittsburgh is nicer. Maybe it's a tenuous connection, considering I was only briefly in Detroit, but a parallelism struck me--or maybe it's not so much the perceived connection between Pittsburgh and Detroit, but the connection midwest (and in Pittsburgh's case midwest-esque ... pardon the neologism) cities have with each other. Regardless, I wouldn't want to live there.

Pennsylvania - Pittsburgh

“I walked five miles to get out of Pittsburgh, and two rides, an apple truck and a big trailer truck, took me to Harrisburg in the soft Indian-summer rainy night. I cut right along. I wanted to get home” (96).

(At this point, Kerouac and I are heading in opposite directions and have different attitudes about home).

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Today was the day I had begun my trip. I'm posting this after-the-fact, but as I anticipated I don't have the opportunity to blog every night. I left home and drove three hours to Ebensburg, PA to see a good friend, then from there stayed the night in Pittsburgh with a friend from college. I took the above pictures in the city before I set out for Ohio, Michigan, and Indiana.

Pennsylvania is considered to be divided up between Pittsburgh and Philadelphia. As pretty much everyone knows, it has more to do with sports than geography. It's not exactly a bustling metropolis like NYC, but sometimes that's a good thing.