We left Pittsburgh after work on Thursday, hitting the road a bit after 5. That put our ETA to Corning at nearly 10pm, but we were all too excited to start the trip to care about the late arrival.
The drive was uneventful, and we found ourselves rolling in to Corning just ahead of schedule. Our only stop had been very briefly at bullfrog brewery in Williamsport to pick up some crowlers, not knowing what would be open once we arrived.
We had also placed an order ahead of time for pickup from one of the few places open past 8 or 9 in Corning called hand and foot. The food was delicious as we gathered around the magic that is hotel cable television.
With food wrapped up and beer consumed, we all went to bed rather tired from a full days work followed by four hours of driving.
We woke up early on Friday, excited to get to Maine. A quick fuel stop for the car, and a fuel (Dunkin) stop for us, and we began our 7ish hour drive to Portland.
The first few hours on the Southern Tier Expressway were beautiful, and absent of any traffic at all. Lovely winding curves through south eastern New York, as we crossed the Catskills and headed for western mass. As we crossed Massachusetts, traffic slowly picked up.
A quick detour was made for lunch in Springfield, and then we were back on the mass turnpike, headed towards Boston, and the variety of beltways that circumscribe it. Traffic got much worse, but we only encountered one accident. But our arrival time slipped by an hour. And then a second hour. So we were quite happy when we finally arrived at our hotel on the outskirts of Portland.
We quickly checked in, signing all the paperwork needed for traveling in the time of COVID. After dropping our bags, we drove up the road 5 minutes to a small grouping of craft breweries. Our first stop was definitive Brewing, and their corona measures knocked it our of the park. We enjoyed unwinding outdoors, heading next door to foundation Brewing later on to continue our sampling of local brews.
On the way back to the hotel, we got great Mexican take out and continued our binging of TV before once again retiring from a day full of driving.