Road Trip: Ohio
Day 2: Saturday, April 06, 2019 - Pittsburgh, PA
Day's statistics:
Weather: Cloudy, upper 60s
Steps: Steve 12,508; Linda 11,684
Drove: 18 miles
One of the only days we were staying overnight in the same city, so we didn't have too much driving to do.
We awoke and after showering and getting ready to go, enjoyed a nice buffet breakfast including eggs, sausage, waffles, muffins, donuts, cereal, yogurt, juice, coffee, tea, and more.
We were off to the Phipps Conservatory (PC) for our first visit. We were early enough to be able to park in the
median in front of facility - which is free for patrons of the PC. This is a stitched image of the entire facility.
We were third on line when they started selling tickets. Linda produced her ID to get the senior discount, but the clerk misunderstood
what was happening, and said after a minute "OK, your tickets are covered under your membership." Uh, what? "Wait, we
don't have a membership." "Oh. Well, the receipt is already printed. So have a nice day." WE SURE WILL! We spend
more than an hour exploring all the wings of the facility, and here are the highlights of what we saw.
There were some outdoor spaces as well. It was early in the season, so there wasn't anything in bloom.
Back inside, disbursed amongst the flowers, were some glass pieces.
Going into the area environmentally set up to represent Cuba, was a portion of a car for photo-ops. So what are we to do?
After we were done at the PC, we may or may not have left the car in the free parking spot and walked across a short bridge
to the Carnegie Museum of Art. The bridge was covered with locks.
As we are Bank of America credit card holders, with our IDs, we got "Museums on Us®" entry into the CMOA. Another win! We spent almost two hours visiting the Natural History (NH) - three floors worth - and the Art exhibits.
The NH portion had sections about Eskimos, Native Americans, and ancient Egyptians. While interesting,
nothing too spectacular. Here are some dinosauers.
Then we got to the Minerals and Gems displays. Here are some highlights of that.
After the NH portion, we walked over to the Arts section. There were quite a few pieces, some very interesting.
There were some that weren't very interesting either - such as the abstract (I know some people like that sort of
art, but we just don't get it. Usually.)
Here is a Cézanne.
A van Gogh.
A Monet.
And some others.
This is one of those works that we just don't get. It was a plain white canvas. mounted to the wall with aluminum brackets...
(I took a picture of the information placard, but it's illegible)
And some rocks in a circle (yes, this is one of the works of art on display).
This building was outside the back of CMOA. It isn't anything special, it just looked interesting.
After the CMOA, we walked back to Phipps. On the outside, as approaching from the CMOA, was a garden area. We captured some
images from that spot, including a statue of Christopher Columbus, and the skyline.
A close up part of the outside of Phipps, and a fountain near the Phipps spotted on the way out.
We were forced to get gas so we stopped on the way to the spot for dinner. We got charged $2.95 for the convenience.
We stopped in the café for some coffee and to figure out what we wanted to do next. Since we had a large breakfast
and it was nearly 2:00, it was time for lunch. We wanted to visit the Pittsburgh BBQ Company.
The GPS was off a little and we passed it going west the first time. We came back and found it going east - but there
was a median and we had to go past it - which took us back to 376, onto the first exit, u-turn, back to 376 and back to the
exit for the restaurant (probably 2-3 miles out of the way). Boy was it worth it. Linda had the beef brisket,
collard greens, potato salad (which had egg), a roll, and a bottle of cream soda. I had the ribs and pulled pork, baked
beans (which were a variety of beans, not just navy), cole slaw, and a Sierra Mist - I passed on the roll.
There was so much food! The sides were 1/2 pint containers. Each. Linda took to-go, half her brisket and potato
salad and her roll. I took to-go, all the pulled pork, half my cole slaw, and asked for the roll I declined earlier when we
were leaving. Left overs! We stored them in the fridge in our room and kept them in the small cooler in the car when
we were traveling. We'll eventually eat them, but I don't know when yet...
We were at that time where it was too late to really go anywhere, but too early to go to church. Less than a half-mile away was a small church - Our Lady of Victory Maronite Church. But unlike our Mass at home that starts at 5:00 on Saturday night, this one started at 5:30. We drove around the steep-hilled neighborhood for a little, but then just sat in the parking lot at the church. And took a nap. Well, I took a nap. After service, we headed back to the room for an early night.