The History of Pittsburgh

Good morning – here’s a tasty treat picture for those of you who feel like zombies this morning due to lack of sleep… Like me. Normally I can sleep through storms but last night’s was particularly loud and we were both in and out for most of the night. Anyway the above treats were from that little Italian pastry shop in Pittsburgh. We had cannoli that they fill on the spot (half a lemon ricotta and half a chocolate mousse) and then the lightest and airiest cheesecake. Ummm delicious!

Pittsburgh is called the City of Bridges and although I will debate that title with City of Hills, there were a lot of bridges. We decided to venture downtown for a “brief” outing to get another one of the banner missions in the GPS game Ingress that we play. It was supposed to take 1-2 hours max but nothing in that game ever seems to go as planned… That’s how some of the best memories are made folks – through unexpected chaos!

We had to start out by one of the local parks. It’s a very odd phenomenon compared to flat and somewhat sprawling Green Bay. We exited one of the huge bridges and immediately were at the park. Boom. We had to pay to park in the lot and then it was somewhat of a hike to get to the actual spot – which included walking under bridges.

I sort of think we look like zombies heading towards the light…

 

We spent the next FIVE hours (not the 1-2 as planned) walking all over downtown Pittsburgh. There is quite a lot of interesting history in this city.

The park was built over the area of Fort Duquesne. I’m not sure if you can read the seal below but it says “This marks the exact site of Fort Duquesne, built by the French in 1754. The fort was destroyed by the French on the approach of the English army in 1758″.  After the site was destroyed, it was replaced by Fort Pitt in 1758. Now we just have a random park commemorating the area…

 

Amid a curious background of bridges and skyscrapers. It feels like a quiet piece of calm while the city blurs all around it.

Another hefty bridge separated the sides of the park. When you walk under the bridge is so thick and insulated that you really don’t hear the road noise above.

On the other side was the Fort Pitt museum. We didn’t go inside but did grab a quick shot of the menfolk by the cannon. Because boys love toys right?

The only historical building still standing is preserved and run by the Daughters of the American Revolution. Since I just so happen to be one, I thought I should be in this picture.

The rest of the day was a hazy blur of finding locations and winding our way through town. It was a pretty warm day and when you’re in the heart of downtown there’s a real food desert. All the gas stations and fast food stores close down over the weekend so trying to find a bathroom or a place to buy bottled water was impossible. About 3 hours into our adventure (and 12,000 steps on the pedometer), we located a dirty 7-11 that didn’t have a rest room but did have water. Hallelujah!

At the end of our misery fun trek all over town, we fell into the hot car and drove over to Heinz field for the weekend Rib Festival. The place was LOADED with festival goers and we had eyes on the freshly squeezed lemonades and BBQ eats. Luckily there were a zillion lemonade stands and armed with deliciously cold beverages, we then stood in line for 40 minutes to get our BBQ plates!

The line-up of all the BBQ joints:

I was really interested in good Texas BBQ so we lined up for a place that had a ton of ribbons for “Best BBQ”, etc… We didn’t notice until we got closer that those ribbons were all from 5-10 years ago. Hmmm

After collecting our plates, the tired troops slugged back to the parking lot to set up a little table and chairs and enjoy our food.

It smelled delicious, it looked delicious, it tasted atrocious. I’ve never really had “bad” BBQ but this was it. The meat felt like it hadn’t cooked long enough to tenderize and there were huge pieces of chewy fat that you couldn’t separate from the meat. We were pretty defeated and had aching feet so we picked around on our plates before tossing 90% in the trash and went back home for cold showers, homemade sangria, frozen pizza, and Mexican dominos.

 

It was a peculiar but memorable day, that’s for sure. I’m sure that’s what we’ll remember and joke about years from now when we look back on this visit together. 🙂 Plus the 16,500 steps probably helped burn off some of the calories from all that cheesecake!

Our last day together was pretty relaxed. Nicole made us some delicious lasagna. She even made the sauce herself. I’m such a terrible hostess. Ha ha. I think I had build-your-own deli sandwiches when they came to visit.

The day was a little sad because we didn’t want to leave. It’s hard knowing it will be a while until we see each other again…

Final smiles!

Our last minutes in Steel Town were spent watching the Cardinals slaughter the Pirates in the TGIFridays restaurant in the airport terminal.

My team was winning and Ben was enjoying a pre-flight beer – not a bad way to end a vacation!

Until next time Pittsburgh!