Road Trip: Ohio
Day 3: Sunday, April 07, 2019 - Pittssburgh, PA
Day's statistics:
Weather: Low 70s, light showers late in the day.
Steps: Steve 13,082; Linda 11,957
Drove: 231 miles
Yesterday's buffet breakfast had fried eggs (over easy, but no runny yolk) and sausage. Today was scrambled eggs and bacon. Everything else was the same. And we ate the same, except with the addition of a pair of small pancakes for me. The pancakes are made like the usual waffles you might see - but instead of a waffle grid, there were two round spots for the same batter but to make the pancakes. Ate a lot, checked out, and headed into the city.
Our first destination was the Fort Pitt Museum. It was nestled on the edge of a park, between three highways. We found
a fairly convenient spot and got out to pay (you don't pay at individual meters, you pay at a kiosk). Free parking on
Sunday. WIN! We walked over to the museum, passing through this interesting pedestrian walkway under the highway.
We walked around the facility, to the main entrance, bought our tickets, and did the tour. Mostly reading about the
fort, the start of the progress West, and the fight for land between Native Americans, Colonists, French, and British.
Here are some pictures, including a diarama, and a couple cannons.
Outside the museum is this remaining original building from the original fort.
After the museum, we walked over to the river for some pictures. On the point, there was a fountain that wasn't
running yet. The stadium and the Carnegie Center are across the river. And there was a park too.
Across the river to the south was this unusual looking building, with a close-up.
Also across the river is a funicular to Mount Washington.
A close-up of one of the bridges.
Some images en route of bridges and the skyline.
Next up was the Andy Warhol Museum. This too was free due to Bank of America's "Museums on Us®". We toured, read quite a bit, and saw some interesting and some not so interesting items. We sat for a 15 or so minute film on Warhol and his legacy before we started the walk of the museum. The ticket man suggested taking the elevator up to the top and walking down - much like the Guggenheim (but not for the same reason).
Here are some of the pictures of the more popular items.
This may not be so famous, but I thought the guy in the front right looked like Millhouse from the Simpsons®.
This was not a work of art, but a real, functioning pay phone. With dial tone (yes, I checked).
One more selfie.
We finished up and walked back to the car. It was about 1:30. Fortunately, we planned for something else the previous
night - so it was off to the University of Pittsburgh to see the Nationality Rooms. A number of rooms - 29 in all (at the
moment, there are a few more planned) - depicting something of the country of origin, most centered around education. If you
purchased the audio tour, you were given a player with a key to unlock the doors to hear the audio (get into the room, enter the
room's track number, and hear about the contents). Here are a number of the highlights, one (or more) from each room.
Yugoslav
Syria-Lebanon
Czechoslovak - painted ceiling beams
Italian - inlaid wood, there were names all along the room.
German - the stained glass windows, and a bookcase with writing above it.
Hungarian - some nice stained glass windows
Polish - painted ceiling tile work
Irish
Lithuanian - painted ceiling work
Romanian - stained glass windows and a globe.
Swedish - more stained glass, and a carving in the seatback of a chair, and some wall artwork.
Chinese - some wall artwork, some ceiling work, and a dragon in the ceiling center
Scotish - a pair of figurines
Austrian - a piece of art
Japanese - some figurines in a display case
Armenian - stained glass and a piece of furniture
Indian
African Heritage
Israel Heritage - a scroll (behind glass).
Turkish - the light brown wood at the seats are actually fold-down desk tables, stained glass windows, and a nice vase.
Ukranian - a large piece of art above some seats.
Welsh - a heating oven, and some plates next to an oddly shaped doorway.
Korean Heritage - notice that the boxes have seats for three pupils. Three!
A couple of images from the hallways (the images are lightened to show detail, it was actually a little darker than the image show).
We also made our way up to the 35th floor for an overlook of the city. The elevator system was very unique (to us). You don't press
a button for "going up" or "going down". You enter the floor you want to go to, and the system tells you which elevator to approach to
get on. There were some offices on this floor (it must be difficult to work when you have tourists visiting freqently.)
Here are the views of the city, but not the whole thing because there were only North and South windows available for viewing. These were
taken from the tower shown in the skyline image from Day 2, and are stitched images. And in the second, the Phipps is the building in
the distance straight ahead (sort of behind the red-roofed square building). The bridge with the locks is between the Phipps and the
red-roofed building. The Carnegie Mueum of Art is the darker, multi-colored roof square building on the left, behind the larger light
grey colored building. And the "interesting building" mentioned above is the yellowish one behind the CMOA parking lot.
When we left, it had started raining lightly. We got to the car and it was 4:30 already. While we COULD have gone to one of our selected locations, we decided that this was a perfect opportinity to eat our left overs from the Pittsburgh BBQ Company. So we had a picnic in the car. I made a pulled pork sandwich on my roll, and still had about half of it left over that I ate out of the container after dumping some of the BBQ sauce on it, and ate the rest of the cole slaw. Linda had the rest of her beef brisket on her roll and finished off her potato salad.
When dinner was done, we bid Pittsburgh adieu, and headed toward Columbus. We stopped at a gas station a couple hours out to get
some coffee, and a light snack. We also passed the state line.
We saw some gas for just $2.45 - fifty cents lower than in Pittsburgh. Doesn't sound like much, but it is 17% less, and ten gallons is a $5 savings!
In addition to the Passport stamps, we've been trying to get a shot glass from the capitals we visit. Too many capitol gift shops DON'T have them. But Wal-Mart usually does. And I say usually because the only one we stopped at so far in Columbus didn't have any. And first, the greeter, like the one in Alabama, had no idea what a postcard was - that statement was based on the fact that she suggested going to the electronics department to look for postcards. Postcards. I think she thought we might have been referring to smart cards. Perhaps. I'm willing to give her the benefit of the doubt about what she might have thought we were referring to, but not to the fact that she had any idea what a postcard was. The other person we found in an aisle at least knew what we were talking about. They didn't have postcards. And shot glasses? Well, Julie thought they might have some Ohio State shot glasses, so we started looking. While she was nice enough to bring us to a couple locations in the store in search of these glasses, I don't think she fully grasped the situation. "Why?" you ask? Well, she said "We should have some Ohio State shot glasses. After all, this is Ohio State." While it is true that Columbis IS in Ohio, and it IS Ohio State, the souvenirs were for Ohio State University. THE OSU. THE powerhouse football team. THAT is why there were so many OSU things. Not because the state was Ohio, but in support of the team. Technically, this Wal-Mart was not within the city limites, so tomorrow, we were going to stop by one on the way - unless we can get one at the capitol - to see if another Wal-Mart has a shot glass.
We arrived at our next stay-over, Extended Stay America. After waiting at the desk for what seemed like at least 10 minutes, I noticed the sign that said "helping another guest, be back soon", said "for immediate help, please dial '0' on the courtesy phone" at the bottom of the announcement. That certainly sped up the check in process. We headed up to the room, I typed this day up, we got ready for bed and were off to dreamland.