[MR] Pennsic driving

[Dave Montuori]

On Mon, 2 Aug 2004, Robyn Becker wrote:
> Greetings all!  There is yet another way, for those of us closer to 
> Baltimore than Washington.  You can take I-83N into PA, towards Harrisburg, 
> and pick up I-76W, just below Harrisburg.  From Harford County, MD, it 
> calculates to about the same traveling time and distance.

Doesn't help with the construction zone, which is *on* the PA Pothole  
(the stretch that is both I-70 and I-76 multiplexed) between Breezewood 
and New Stanton.

One route I've taken a couple of times is to take either the Turnpike or 
US 30 to Bedford (the next exit west on the Turnpike), get on I-99 north 
to Altoona, then take US 22 west. From there you can go all the way to the 
Turnpike east of Pittsburgh, bypassing the construction. Or you can get on 
US 422 at Ebensburg and head west, and as you may have noticed, 422 is the 
road that Currie Road runs into...

US 22 has one MAJOR hill, just west of Altoona, but my own opinion is it's 
not noticeably steeper than the hill on the Turnpike leading up to the 
Allegheny Tunnel. 22 has other hills but they're all minor (either not 
steep or quite brief, easily handleable). 422 doesn't have any serious 
hills but it seems like it takes forever to get from Ebensburg to Coopers 
Lake! (But it does go right past Butler, which is good if you need 
supplies BEFORE your arrive.) It seemed to take a shorter time to use 22 
all the way back to the Turnpike -- but I think that's purely 
psychological.

The other route to avoid the Turnpike is to take I-68 from Hancock to 
Morgantown and pick up I-79 there. I've done that one a couple of times 
too. There's a good pizza joint east of Cumberland MD (Uncle Tucker's) 
that homebrews not only beer, but various soft drinks.

Evan