Noontime Tuesday saw cross-country motorcyclists Buddy and Bob pull into Pittsburgh, fresh from a drive across Ohio the previous day. Actually, they stopped at my workplace, the Senator John Heinz History Center. Greeting them too were PBS Producer Rick Sebak (below, middle) and cameraman Bob Lubomski, filming a program about the Lincoln Highway. (Click here to see it larger on Flickr – once there, click All Sizes above the photo.)
There were photos all around, including some of me on one of their Piaggio cycles. I’m not sure I could trade 4 wheels for a cycle, even one with 3 wheels, but it would certainly offer a more intimate experience with the roadscape. We swapped LH stories and then it was off to lunch. Here’s a very short video clip of them riding away from town on Smallman Street.
The History Center is at the eastern edge of Pittsburgh’s downtown and at the western edge of the Strip District, named becasue it’s a thin strip of land along the river. It’s been home to mills and rails and workers and churches but in recent decades it’s known for prduce stands, and more recently, restaurants and nightclubs. Here’s Bob L getting a shot at Penn Mac, a great place to buy cheese, olives, and other Italian specialties.
Then we headed to Enrico Biscotti. If there’s one thing photos and videos can’t do justice to, it’s the aroma of fresh-baked biscotti emerging from the oven. Lunch there is in a tiny alley that really feels like you’re in a European cafe.
It was over all too soon for me since I had to return to work, but the 4 transcontinentalists were heading eastward in search of LH landmarks. I recommended the Abe Lincoln statue in Wilkinsburg and the tiny iron bridge in Turtle Creek in the shadow of the massive Westinghouse Bridge. I loaned them my PA Lincoln Highway guide in hopes it would help them follow the route. And before we left, we got more photos: from left, Bob, Brian, Bob L, Buddy, and Rick.
Read about their further adventures that day HERE.
Here’s a photo of Buddy and Bob (posing as one of the pioneering motorcycling Van Buren sisters) in the Dixon Welcome Center. They stopped here on Thursday, July 3rd, to visit the Lincoln Highway Interpretive Center. We lunched at The Salamander in downtown Dixon with Mayor Jim Burke and Diane Bausman, Executive Director of the Blackhawk Waterways Convention & Visitor Bureau.
This is the signage at the new location of the Dixon Welcome Center on the corner of River and Galena Streets. It houses a Lincoln Highway Interpretive Exhibit. The center opens Mon – Sat at 10 a.m.
Buddy, Bob, and I then stopped in Franklin Grove to visit the LHA Headquarters where they bought a couple of shirts from Lyn Asp. While there, they sat for 5 minutes and conducted an interview via cell phone with a lady named Karin who was reaching them from France. They are making news worldwide now! They are really nice gentlemen and are full of stories from all of their travels of the world.
Lincoln Highway News 