Does anyone know the fastest way out of Erie, PA?

As part of our "Road Trip Guidelines", Matt and I have decided not to visit any chain restaurants that are available to us in New England. Another guideline we have is that we will try, if time permits, to travel on those roads less traveled: those two lane roads through Americana.

Yesterday after our brief stop in Buffalo (and yes Denise, it does sound like this trip is all about food, doesn't it?) we ventured off "the 90" and traveled on the lesser route 20 through Pennsylavania. It began as a nice drive with slower speed limits through wine country, and we were surrounded by grapevines. Occassionally we would pass through those small towns that have a downtown mainly consisiting of a post office, American Legion or other towny bar, consignment shop and some sort of car repair garage. It was quite nice to take our time on our way to Cleveland, and we enjoyed the scenery and conversation.

That is, until we hit Erie, Pennsylvania.

We traveled in silence for a while, because I get sick of the iPod and like to have quiet for a while. I looked at Matt after about an hour into Erie and said, "You know what? I'm not scared, but Erie is kind of a dump". And Matt agreed. It was like driving through Lawrence, or the trashy sections of Lowell. Nothing to look at except old run down houses, Dollar General Stores, and consignment shops. Plus, it was the beginning of rush hour, so it kind of took forever. Ugh. We finally were out of there around 3:30. I hope you never have to travel through Erie, ever.

So, with the help of "phone", or our gps which totally kicks ass, we make it to our hotel in Cleveland by around five-ish.

Now, we had no idea what to do once we got here. So, we decided to walk the two blocks to Jacob's Field and see if there were any seats open to the Sox vs. Indians game. We thought that it would be sold out; so when we walked up to the ticket window and asked for tickets, the woman said "well, let me see what is open"....I then said, "we'll take the cheapest seats available", and she said "we have plenty of those!" So we had $7 seats for last night's game with John Lester pitching his first game since last summer...and he kicked ass. I love being a Red Sox fan! It was a beautiful evening! Matt will tell you about our happy anniversary which was today! But I'll let you know that Cleveland fans are awesome, and they let you text stuff on their jumbo-tron during the game....you don't have to pay a hundred bucks to wish someone a happy birthday or anniversary like you do at Fenway!