A day spent in Pittsburgh

It's been awhile since my last post, I've been busy doing many things and I can't remember any of them. But home improvement stalled and I went to Texas, and now I'm going back to Texas and so there will be no more posting til at least a week or more. 

In the meantime, this post about our trip is at finality, so here it is.

On our first morning in Pennsylvania, our plans were to go back to Pittsburgh, sight see, ride the Duquesne Incline, eat at the famous Primanti Brothers restaurant and go to a Pirates game. Oh, and go to the Andy Warhol museum....insert the hugest eye roll you could EVER imagine here. 

We left our hotel in Butler and after an hour's ride, arrived in the Burgh. After being in Pennsylvania for one week, I discovered the keystone state hasn't ever met a Burgh they didn't like, not that there's anything wrong with that. There's Pittsburgh of course, Greensburg (loved what we saw), Harrisburg, Gettysburg (wanted to see that so bad but just didn't have the time) and Canonsburg. OK, that's only five but it seemed like a lot when we were there.

We drove through The Strip, that's a place with little shops, not clubs. We weren't in New Orleans! Once again we saw houses built on the side of a mountain, or hill, not sure about what elevation constitutes one or the other. 

There are tons of churches everywhere and they are all old and European looking. At least to me they are.

If that doesn't look like old world Europe I don't know what does. BUT. I've never been to Europe so I really have no basis for that observation. But I'm sticking with my original statement in spite of my lack of travel.

This green domed church was intriguing to me...

So we went and found it.

It was my fave.

This may be part of the strip where there are ethnic stores and restaurants. 

These things were all around town and went in the water as well as on land. It was a little disconcerting to me. We did not go for a ride. 

After riding around town we went to the Duquesne Incline for a ride up to see the city. 

John and Owen took forever buying a parking ticket. See that stuffed full parking lot? We had to have a ticket. 

We are still waiting!

Two of my lovely daughters. 

And the other with John. Olivia was supporting with her shirt. 

Me and the O.

Here we go.

We made it to the top and Owen, afraid of heights, survived. 

I could say blech, but I won't. We could have toured the stadium but Kenny Chesney was gonna have a concert later that week and therefore it was closed to touring. Way to ruin things Kenny. 

Pretty skyline. I was shocked to learn Pittsburgh only has a little over 300,000 people. 

It's also know as the city of bridges. They have the most of any city. 

I really like this picture lots. 

Caitlin asked someone to take our picture. 

Then I took one. 

I took this of old Pittsburgh. 

Pretty cool pictures. 

Then it was time to go back down and on to the next thing on our agenda.

My peeps. 

The next thing on our agenda was this. 

This isn't gonna be pretty....

The kids wanted...no insisted on going to the Andy Warhol museum and because I'm nothing if not a team player, I went as well. 

This is in the lobby and there are no more pictures BECAUSE no pictures were allowed. 

Here's the deal....actually there are many deals so prepare for my rant. John's grandmother and Andy Warhol's grandmother were first cousins. SO, technically and not even technically John and Andy were related, so I sorta have the right to have a strong opinion. Andy was a nut. And he was pretentious. I can't take pretentiousness in any shape or form. Andy Warhol was a pretentious nut who believed people cared about his every move. He thought he was someone other people thought was interesting. He was not. Well, I did not and I think his museum is stupid. 

He was selling the emperor's new clothes and everybody thought his pop art was fab. It is not. I think it's stupid. Every single floor, there were 7, was filled with weird, stupid stuff, not art. As I finished one floor and was waiting for the elevator, I looked over and saw on a TV, Andy Warhol's silly self sitting eating a hamburger. And that's when I lost it. I quit in my head long before that, but my body joined in the quitting. As in, I left the building. OK, I didn't physically leave the building til everyone was finished, but I went back to the lobby and waited for my people to realize that going was a horrible dumb mistake and a waste of our money. 

I told Olivia to look off into the day and I would make art. And it was better than Andy's.  

The art of my people.

Oh look! Owen changed his expression. More art. 

This is the look of people who know they just got taken by a scam....and their money was non-refundable. And they knew I was totally annoyed by the entire experience.

Then we went to an antique store where we found the same antiques as you do in Louisiana. 

But you never see one of these in a Louisiana store. 

There was something very similar to this at Gran's. Don't know what happened to it. 

John bought this coal bucket.

After the antique store we found a parking spot on the other side of this bridge and then walked across it to look around Pittsburgh.

That's our people not waiting on us. 

Here is more art. That's John and me...our shadows at least...as we looked out over the river...don't know which river. My hiney was so tight as I hung my camera over to take this picture. In fact, it's tight just thinking about it as I look at this. 

This is Primanti Bros. restaurant. Very delicious. 

Us.

The sandwich that was yum.

This is the receipt for the stupid place. That's the price for two adults, not that it makes it any better.  

This is better art than at the stupid place. 

After we ate, we walked back over the bridge to the Pirates stadium for the baseball game. 

Loved the skyline view.

We had great seats for the game. 

Us again.

Then, this eclipse came and sat right in front of me and I never saw anything again. 

Some of us....

May have been more bored than others. That's Caitlin keeping score so as to try to stay interested in the game. 

Owen ate his way through this cotton candy. 

The permanent eclipse never even went to the bathroom! There are many seats in this whole freaking place and he had to come sit in the one in front of me. 

Ice cream in the cute hat made it a little better. This is the only reason Emma went to the game. 

The goal.

After nightfall the lovely view changed colors.

This A and M guy was with the eclipse. Made me feel a little closer to home. 

After the game we drove around Pitt and then went back to the hotel. It was a fun filled day doing things we'd never done before together. It was a good day.

Now it's almost 2:30AM and I'm tired and leaving tomorrow, so I'll be back but I don't know when. 

Until then, happy and safe 4th of July to all.

God please bless us even though things seem to be going against your will.

I'm out like a person leaving town.