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In this photoseries we describe a 3 weeks trip to the Mid-Eastern USA and Ontario. Our starting destination was Pittsburgh. Our tours started from our son Michaelīs appartment on South Negley in his Mazda 626. We had the opportunity to visit Pittsburgh and surroundings including shorter trips in Pennsylvania (first week), a southbound trip to the Great Smokey Mountains in Tennessee (5 days) and finally a northbound trip to the Northern Peninsula of Michigan and Ontario in Canada to experience the famous fall colors of the Canadian maple trees (5 days).

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Arrival at Dulles Airport, Washington, at 19.00 in the evening on September 19th. It was extremely hot (well above 80 °F) and humid in contrast to the rain and cool winds we left in Kulhuse in Denmark early in the morning. Michael waited in the airport to take us to Pittsburgh in his Mazda 626. The drive to Pittsburgh is about 220 miles (350 km) and took 5 hours with a short stop at McDonalds just before the Pennsylvanian Turnpike. And at a gas station for a full tank of gasoline, which to our surprise had been even cheaper since the last time we visited USA. Well below 1 USD pr gallon at the cheapest stations. Unbeliavable to us Europeans where pricess are in the range 3-5 USD pr gallon. One of the real virtues of the USA we believe is the total freedom to move around this great country. In Europe most governments seem to be very restrictive and impose endless taxes on travelling.

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When we arrived at Michaels new appartment close to Walnut street in the Shady Side area of Pittsburgh around midnight we were tired and ready to relax after more than 20 hours of travel. So Anna immidiately occupied Michaelīs bed.

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The next morning was Sunday and very quiet around the Shady Side neighborhood. At the morning coffee (with bagels - uhm!) we made plans to spend the first days in Pittsburgh. So we studied a lot of brochures and we even went to the very picturesque Tourist Information Center (click for a picture) at the campus of the University of Pittsburgh. A very kind lady supplied us with maps and information brochures for Pittsburgh and Pennsylvania. Finally Michaelīs table was covered with all sorts of brochures and newspapers as seen on this picture. Monday was then set aside for cleaning up the appartment (Anna insisted) and to supplement with some furnitures and art-work on the walls. For that purpose we visited IKEA (yes a real Swedish Ikea is located west of Pittsburgh).