Pittsburgh (A long post)

Since I worked the 4th of July, my job owed me a paid holiday, and that happened to fall on this weekend. Since I had a 3 day weekend, we decided to head out to Pittsburgh. We were planning on going later this fall with Zack's parents, but Zack's sister got engaged so we will be in Utah at that time instead (so exciting! Congrats to Megan and Jeff). Since we don't get to go then, we thought we'd check it out now.

The way out was a little rough. We left around traffic time anyway, and there were a couple of accidents on the freeway. That led to the worst traffic we have ever experienced. We were basically just stopped on the freeway for a long time. It took us over 2 hours to go the first 14 miles of our 300 mile trip. Yuck! We finally made it there several hours later than planned, but safe.

On Friday, it was hot hot hot and very humid, but we braved the weather anyway. We started the day with a walking tour that we downloaded onto our ipods. That was a good way to do it because we could go at our own (slow) pace and stop frequently to walk around an air conditioned store or to get a slurpee. We did see some cool and fun stuff.

This is the courthouse. It used to be a jail.

I just thought this building looked cool.

Zack with a triceratops ketchup bottle. Random? I think so.

This was me in the plaza near the Pittsburgh Plate Glass Company building. In front of me was a big ol' skyscraper that looked very similar to the glass building behind me in the picture. I think it was my favorite Pittsburgh skyscraper-- not really very cute, but unique, and interesting as basically a giant advertisement. A glass company should have a giant glass skyscraper as a headquarters.

Zack in the eyeball park.

On our tour, we stopped at 2 side by side churches. Both had lovely stained glass windows. Here's one from the first church we went in.

Here's the tower to that church.

And a view of the outside.

Church #2's interior.

Cool stained glass.

There is a small cemetery between the churches, and there is a Native American chief who died in the 1700s buried there. Pretty cool.

Although the walking tour ended up taking longer than we planned because of the heat and our pace, we really enjoyed it.

Next we decided to go on a boat tour. Pittsburgh is where the Allegheny and Monongahela Rivers meet to make the Ohio river, which made for a great little boat tour. We went on one of these (except ours was the Duchess).

Here's Zack with PNC Park, home of the Pirates.

This is a memorial to Mr. Rogers. Someone figured out how to put a red sweater on the statue, which depicts Mr. Rogers changing his shoes.

A skyline view from the boat

The Duquesne incline, which takes you up Mt. Washington.

After we got off the boat, we decided to go up the Monongahela Incline. We picked that one because it was right near where we caught the boat. Unfortunately it was not working. Here I am right by it. I was exhausted at that point.

So we decided to take a much needed break for some food.

After we ate, we thought we'd be all refreshed and ready for more, but heat like that sure takes a lot out of you, and I realized that I was going to need to rest for a while, so we headed back to the hotel and got there just in time to miss a pouring rainstorm. Here's a view from our hotel window. It's kind of hard to capture rain in a picture.

After a little r&r, we headed off to PNC Park for a Pirates game.

It's a cool park, right on the water, with a cool view of the skyline.

The game was perfect. A storm moved in and delayed it for about a half hour, but it also cooled it down to about 74 degrees. Still muggy, but much more bearable than before. The Pirates lost to the Cardinals, but it was a good game and we really had a great time.

The next day, I woke up on the wrong side of the bed, and since it was a long drive home, we didn't do a whole ton. But we were able to go up the Duquesne Incline.

In the car on the way up the incline. Pretty much sums up my mood.

After that, we hit up a shopping district known as The Strip. And finally, we got a famous Primanti Brothers sandwich. Your meat of choice on Italian bread with tomatoes, coleslaw, and french fries (all on the sandwich). I skipped the coleslaw since I hate it, but the sandwich was very good. We wish we could've stayed longer and seen more. Maybe next time.