Day 27 - A Morning of Pop Culture and an Afternoon Riding the Highway to Hell

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Since we had already decided that it was too cold to be whitewater rafting yet, we had decided to skip the stop in Ohiopyle, PA (even though the rafting looked awesome!). But we didn't want to miss the stop in Pittsburgh to see the Andy Warhol Museum that was on the way to Ohiopyle. This meant that today would probably be a long day on the bike. The Garmin lady said it was a 3 hour ride to Pittsburgh on the back roads, or a 1.75 hour ride on the Interstate. Also iit would be a 6 hour ride from Pittsburgh to Niagara Falls on the back roads and a 4 hour ride on the interstate. We normally always take the back roads, but since we knew it was going to be a 300+ mile day, we were looking to save a little time. The Andy Warhol Museum opened at 10:00, so we figured we would sleep a little later and get on the road by 8:00 and take the Interstate to Pittsburgh and be there when it opened. So we grabbed a quick breakfast, loaded up the bike, and were actually on the road by 7:30.

The ride to Pittsburgh was pretty uneventful, there wasn't a lot of traffic, and one thing we have noticed on this trip is that the 18-wheelers generally remain in the right hand lane and rarely, if ever exceed the posted speed limit. It's a far cry from a few years ago of 18-wheeler barrelling down the road at 80-90 miles an hour. I think the GPS may have slowed them down. The weather was bright and sunny, and the only real problem were some places with grooved pavement, but we have sort of gotten used to it on this trip. It's still a little uncomfortable on the bike, but not nearly as unnerving as when we started the trip. We arrived at the Andy Warhol Museum at about 9:40, and there was even parking available next door. So we hung out at the entrance, waiting for the place to open with a bunch of other people, or rather I hung out at the entrance, while Jody hung out a little around the corner where she could stand in the direct sunlight to get warm.

The museum opened promptly at 10:00, and we bought our tickets and headed over to the Museum Cafe for a cup of coffee before we started our wanderings. There were Gallery Talks and 11:00 and 3:00, and a Silk Screen Demo at 1:00 which normally we would have loved to see, but we knew we had a long ride ahead of us - into uncertain weather - so we passed on the talks and demo and just guided ourselves. Before we started, in the lobby, there was a famous picture of Andy Warhol in lying on a couch. The actual couch in the photo was below it, so you could recreate the picture yourself. I had Jody pose on the couch the same as Andy Warhol and it looked awesome! To be more accurate, she should have been wearing sunglasses, but they were out in the bike and too far away, so we settled for the picture without the sunglasses. It looked great on Facebook!

The Andy Warhol Museum is laid out in 7 floors, chronologically by date, starting from the 1920's to the 1960's on the seventh floor and working forward in time as you proceed down to the first floor. So we rode the elevator to the 7th floor and worked our way down. Andy Warhol was born in 1928 which actually makes him my mother's age which surprised me. His real name was actually Andy Warhola which he shortened. The museum showed a lot of his early works, he started as a painter, and when he graduated from Carnegie Tech, we went to work on Madison Ave as a commercial artist in advertising and was very successful. But even in his advertising art, there was a repetitive nature to his artwork that was a hallmark of his style as he became popular.

His artistic career took off in the 60's and 70's with his original Campbell Soup Cans. A lot of these earlier works were painted until he move to stamping and silk screening. He became really popular in the New York social circles especially around Studio 54 in its heyday. He made a bunch of art movies, and a bunch of shorts. A lot of these were available for viewing at the museum, but we didn't really have time. Some were really funny, there were a few of the silent ones projected on the wall continuously. One was called "Ass" that is a 90 minute silent movie of some girls naked ass. There was one called "Eat" which is 45 minutes of some guy eating a mushroom, and one called "Blow Job" a 30 minute film of a guy's facial expressions during a blow job. He also did about 500 2-3 minute "screen tests", mostly silent and black and white where the subjects facial expressions were recorded. There was a studio set up for "screen tests" and Jody made one herself. It was great and she posted it on Facebook!

There was a large body of his work over the years, along with lots of pictures with various movie stars he was obsessed with. There was even one room with floating silver pillows that you could interact and participate with the art. It was all great fun, and I have always loved Andy Warhol stuff. Evidently sometime in the late 60's he was shot by a crazy woman and almost died. This made him focus on his fame and he worked very hard to be a household name. He even appeared in the TV show "Love Boat" and had his own TV show on MTV. Sadly, he died unexpectedly in 1986 of complications after routine gall-bladder surgery when his artwork was really taking off.

As we made it down to the first floor, there was a theater running a 20 minute film of his life that was really interesting. In retrospect, we should have watched the movie before we visited the museum as it would have explained things better. But no matter, it was still an awesome museum! If we had more time, we could have easily spent an entire day there, as it was, we finished after 2.5 hours and were ready to hit the road by 12:30.

We left Pittsburgh by the backroads with the Garmin lady telling us we would reach Niagara Falls by by 6:30. So we headed north on the backroads of western Pennsylvania and it was just a wonderful ride. These were more like real mountains, and the roads were steep and curvy and the scenery was awesome! We rode through all kinds of small and midsize towns and the riding was just exhilarating. Along the way, we stopped at a scenic overlook and met a bunch of guys on Harleys and talked with them a while about our trip. They were really nice and wished us luck. For a while we were even on State Road 666, the Highway to Hell! Meanwhile, the clouds were beginning to darken and rain looked inevitable. So when we gassed up the bike, we both put on our rainsuits, both as protection from the possible rain, and as protection from the cold and wind.

As luck would have it, it never did rain more than a couple of drops on us, though it did rain in areas nearby. About 2 hours outside Niagara Falls at around 5:30, the Garmin had been creeping up in time and was now showing our arrival at 7:30. So I changed the Garmin settings to avoid Highways to off, and let it pick the interstates for the rest of the trip. This move our arrival time back to 6:30 with only about 50 miles on Interstates. As we approached Buffalo, the wind over lake Erie picked up substantially, so while it wasn't all that cold, the wind was getting really bad. In the last 10 miles to the hotel, we had to cross 3 bridges, all with grooved pavement and all in high winds. We just slowed down and held on and arrived at the hotel at just about 6:45.

When I booked the hotel, a Doubletree right across from the falls, there were no Friends and Family Rate rooms available, but I did manage to get a good rate on the last Hearing Accessible room. When the girl at the desk noticed it was a Hearing Accessible room , she asked if we need that kind of room and when we said no, she switched it for a regular room at the same price. This is also the kind of place where parking is extra, and the rate is normally $12 per day. When I told her we were on a motorcycle, she said that since a motorcycle was only half the size of a car, we should only be charged half the parking rate also. She was very nice to us. Meanwhile, while we were waiting to check in, the hotel also has a tour desk, and the guy at the desk asked us if we needed any help with setting up tours. We told him that we were just getting in, and that after we had settled in the room and had some dinner, we would come see him to ask about tours.

We were too tired, and it was too windy and cold to look elsewhere for dinner, so we decided to eat in the hotel. The hotel restaurant was very nice, and not too pricey if you stayed away from the $42 steaks. After dinner we went over to the tour desk and spoke with the tour guy. We had a fair idea what we wanted to see, but were concerned with the logistics of working it all out in the 3 nights and 2 full days we are here. He was great! He hooked us up with an 5 hour American Side tour tomorrow at 10:30 and a 5:00pm twilight tour of the Canadian Side on Thursday. Both tours are all inclusive, and pick us up and drop us off right at the lobby of the hotel. For Thursday during the day, he recommended the free trolley ride that takes us to the fort, and recommended some of the stops along the way. So in 30 minutes, our entire 2 days are planned and we never have to move the bike the entire time! We can hardly wait!

372.8 Miles Today

4333.4 Miles Total

5.354 Gallons Today

106.633 Gallons Total

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