I am taking my first road trip

Now that I can almost roll over (see above), I decided that it was time to take my first big road trip. Where am I going, you ask? Well, I briefly considered California, but it turns out that you have to be a granola-eating hippie to be allowed into the state. Other possibilities included Tennessee (I don't have a cowboy hat); New York (I don't like crowds); Minnesota (too cold); and Oregon (I don't like its shape). Then I realized that I was creating problems where there are none. I would just go to Pennsylvania!

Here are some fun facts about Pennsylvania:

1. In 1941, a penalty flag invented by Dwight Beede, a graduate of the former Carnegie Institute of Technology in Pittsburgh, replaced the penalty horn in a football game played at Youngstown State University against Oklahoma City University. The bi-colored cloth flag was replaced with a yellow flag in 1974.


2. The whitetail deer is Pennsylvania’s official animal, a designation approved by the state Legislature in 1959. The animal provided food, clothing and shelter to both Indians and early settlers to the state, and remains abundant today.


3. The first practical air brake for railroads was patented by George Westinghouse in 1869 in Pittsburgh. Because the device made braking much safer, it allowed trains to travel at much greater speeds, thus serving as a boon to the industry.


4. Due to the popularity of hunting in Western Pennsylvania, churches often commission paintings of Jesus holding a rifle or gutting a deer rather than the more traditional images of him helping the poor or administering to the sick.


5. In 1999, Pennsylvania introduced license plates that bore the state’s Internet address—www.state.pa.us—instead of a slogan. Former Gov. Tom Ridge said the new plate’s design was an effort to depict the state as “high tech, high energy and ready for the new millennium.”


6. In Pennsylvania, the value of pi has been rounded down to 3 by the state legislature.