Map of the Day 1 route from New York through New Jersey and Pennsylvania to Columbus, Ohio

5575 Miles · Friday, July 3rd, 2009

Day 1: NY-NJ-PA-OH

The first day started very early, before dawn, at 5AM, aiming to leave New York City behind us before the usual morning traffic. For the very first day we had planned a very long drive—about 600 miles (1000 kilometers)—through four states: New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Ohio. The goal was to get as far West as possible from home in a single day (12 hour drive).

We crossed the Hudson River before breakfast, took highway 78 through New Jersey to Harrisburg, PA and then took the Pennsylvania Turnpike (highway 76) through the Appalachian mountains. Around lunch time we arrived in Bedford, PA. For no particular reason other than its location halfway through our drive, we had planned to stop there to grab a bite.

Main street in Bedford, Pennsylvania, lined with old brick and painted buildings

After a healthy lunch at a nice café we walked a little bit around main street, where I stumbled upon a beautiful little barber shop. Now, if you know me well, you already know that I have a special interest for barbers and their shops, so I had to peek inside the store and I was pleasantly surprised by the warmth of the owner, Don Corley, and his customer.

We chatted a little bit about where I am from and about the journey I had begun just a few hours earlier, then the man sitting in the chair told me about when he lived in Italy, in the north-east, and then they even allowed me to take a couple of pictures of them.

An American flag and flower baskets outside shops on a Bedford sidewalk

The pale blue front of a small barber shop with a striped pole

The barber trimming a customer's moustache inside the shop

The barber at work on a customer in a white cape

Old shutters, flowers and a red gate stacked against a blue wall

A quiet side street between clapboard buildings and a church spire

Grain silos and a lattice tower under a heavy grey sky

A yellow Jeep parked below a brick building and power lines

A brick grain elevator and silos beneath dark storm clouds

Shortly after lunch the sky turned dark, a clear invitation for me to take a short detour off the highway driving through the fields of southwest Pennsylvania, between Somerset and Donegal, by Laurel Hill State Park.

Whenever I see that the conditions are favorable to take pictures (interesting light, dramatic weather and beautiful landscape), I enjoy taking short detours—especially since the GPS makes going back to the planned route absolutely effortless.

While I was shooting some pictures it started raining lightly and, shortly after, the rain became more intense—which convinced me to drive back to the highway and to continue our drive towards Columbus, OH.

Pink wildflowers in front of rolling fields and misty hills

A fence post among pink wildflowers in a green field under grey cloud

A weathered wooden fence crossing a green field

A wooden fence running along a grassy hillside under a stormy sky

Right before getting back onto I-70, heading towards Columbus, OH, we stopped at a gas station. While standing outside the gas station smoking a cigarette, I noticed how the light was making a huge McDonald's sign above me stand out over the stormy sky in the background, which reminded me of the Floating Logos series by freelance photographer and acclaimed artist Matt Siber.

A McDonald's sign floating against an overcast sky