I am in the planning stages of a trip for my daughter and me this summer. For those of you that are familiar with the area I ask if you know a way to shorten the trip in some way between Washington, DC (Union Station) and Pittsburg, PA.

We would be coming from Tampa, FL to DC via AMTRAK. Riding folders from there up the Potomic (on the C&O) to Pittsburg where we can get back on AMTRAK to Syracuse, NY. From there AMTRAK over to and down the East Coast - stopping to ride a bit along the way back to Tampa.

We only have two weeks time for this and the 328 miles shown between DC and Pittsburg are a bit much for my daughter - and we don't have the 6 days to do it (miles that she could handle each day). I am looking for advice on how to shorten this trip via transit or other means. For example, if we had to we'd take a cab out of DC and cut off some miles - and the same coming into Pittsburg. However, I feel that might cause us to miss some interesting city riding.

Any ideas on how to make this part of the trip shorter?