Day 1: Bacon-wrapped Quail Eggs

One day down, 19 to go.

Allen and I hit the road around 10 am for one of our longest stretches of the trip (estimated at around 7-8 hrs; most other days we're only driving 4-5).  It was a little slow in the beginning as there were some traffic delays and we had to make a gas stop, a Panera lunch stop, and two post-Panera related emergency stops all before we got out of New Jersey.  Once we hit the Pennsylvania border though the trip sped up without delays.

We got to the Mariott City Center in downtown Pittsburgh around 6:30.  Allen's baller Mariott status got us access to the concierge lounge for some snacks and drinks, but we didn't want to eat too much because we were meeting Jeff Galak and his fiancee, Roz, for dinner at Tamari, which is an asian/latin/fusion type restaurant, around 8.  The most impressive tapas we ordered were the bacon-wrapped quail eggs, which helped me complete the trifecta of me having bacon with every meal during the day.  I also had some sushi, pekking duck quesadillas, guacamole and chips, another duck side dish, and some meat skewers.  All very delicious, but we ordered way too much and I was stuffed when we left.

We said bye to Jeff and Roz, and then moved on to a bar nearby to meet up with my former Cambridge coworker Steve Blahovec who lives and works in Pittsburgh, and a couple of Allen's Citrix comrades who were currently in Pittsburgh on a project.  We met up at a bar called Church Brew Works, which used to be a church back in the day, but has been converted into a microbrewery.  Interesting ambiance, the beers were really good, it was fun catching up with Steve and the rest of the guys, we met up with some cheerleaders, and Citrix picked up the bar tab.  We made our way back to the hotel around 1:30 am, putting an end to a long first day.

Miles traveled today: 428
States traveled: 3