In October of 2018 Mom and I went to our first Pittsburgh Penguins game in Vancouver, BC, Canada. It was awesome! Since then we wanted to go to a Pen's home game to watch our favorite player, Sidney Crosby, compete before something happened like an injury or he retired. We had to wait until the 2019-20 schedule came out before planning it.
The schedule finally came out on June 25th and I scanned it to see when the best time to go was. The game that would work the best with the schedule would be the November 9th at 7:00 p.m. against the Chicago Blackhawks. Therefore, we started the process of actually planning it. Throughout the next few months we secured our game tickets, plane tickets, the rental car, all the hotels and the extra things we were going to do along the way that we could pay in advance for, that included the Amish tour on the Monday before we left Pennsylvania. I have been told, when I vacation I vacation hard.
Over the next couple months I paid off some of the chunks of money from the various items we booked to mom since she had put it on her credit card. I used each pay period to chip away at the amount owed. The game tickets were paid off first and then the rest as time went on and I got paid. I put the amounts into $200-$300 chunks and took them out of each pay check from June until December.
Both Monday and Tuesday I made sure I had all of my clothes that I was going to bring washed and dried, I made several itineraries and lists, I had a list of geocaches I wanted to get in each place we were going, I had my computer, cords, pens, paper, toiletries, money, bags, chargers, pre-paid tickets and the other miscellaneous items I was going to bring with me. I needed to make sure I had enough stuff for 5ish days. I asked Ben if he would drive us because we were going to fly out of one airport and come home to another so we really couldn't leave a vehicle there. He said he would even though it was a weekday and he had to go to work in the morning.
Tuesday, I went to work the whole day and made sure I was caught up on everything. I didn't like to leave anything pending before a long vacation or weekend. However, I was going to be really tired because we chose a red eye flight out of Portland. We chose Portland because there would be less layovers and it was worth the money to not sit inside of airports for hours on end wasting our vacation time. As soon as I got home, I took an hour nap, made some quick food and started packing the suitcase. I had most everything laid out the night before so I knew what I had and what I still needed to grab. Just before it was time to go, I made sure I had everything.
We drove into Rainier around 8 to pick up mom. She is never ready to go when we get there. I had to get her butt into gear. She made one final swoop of the house as Ben and I took her luggage out to the Escape. We told Dad bye and when we were coming home. He said to have fun and call to check in once and a while. We told him we would. We made the drive to Portland.
I have never flew out of Portland before. I have been to the PDX Airport several times over the past few years but I was never a passenger. Ben took us to departures, helped us take our luggage out of the back and we gave out hugs and I will miss yous. I told him that I would check in with him everyday on how we were doing and where we were. I thanked him for taking us to the airport. He said to have fun and he will see us in Seattle on Monday evening.
We wheeled our bags in and looked for the United ticket kiosk. We printed out our tickets and got in line to check our bags. We had to pay a bag fee because we couldn't find any flights to or from Pittsburgh with Southwest Airlines so we had to be flexible. We walked to security and got through really quickly. From there, we walked to our gate, found some seats to chill in and waited until our flight at 11:30. I walked to one of the small stores for some popcorn and a Cherry Coke. For some reason I was hungry and must not have eaten enough at dinner earlier. We sat in our chairs and played with the phones for a bit. I realized that I was at the PDX airport and needed a feet/carpet shot to post on Instagram.
I got on my laptop for a bit. Mom was getting tired and rested her eyes while we waited.
They started boarding around 11 p.m. We got on and found our seats. I sat next to the window and two others were in the seats next to me. Mom was across the aisle sitting with two other people. We listened to all the pre-flight stuff. As we ascended into the air I got comfortable with my neck pillow and blanket and tried to sleep. The flight to Washington D.C. was suppose to take about 4 hours but we got there early. I slept maybe 2-3 hours. Mom probably got around the same maybe more.
We arrived at Dulles International where we had a two hour layover because we arrived earlier than anticipated. We walked around, I ate a Cliff bar, a banana and a chocolate milk. Mom had a chocolate milk, a banana and one of her Kind bars she had stashed in her backpack. We ate our food and charged our phones while we waited for the next plane. I found out there wasn't an airport cache inside the terminal. I was disappointed I wouldn't get my first Virginia cache.
Our connecting plane to Pittsburgh was in a tiny plane. We sat next to a lady in the emergency exit row. I was in the middle seat and mom was in the aisle seat. We left at 8:30. The lady never looked at us or spoke to us the entire 33 minute flight to Pittsburgh. She kept clutching a purple blanket that might have had a lavender scent. I assumed she was anxious about flying. We touched down at 9:30, unloaded the plane and went to the carousel to get our luggage.
We didn't have to wait long because there weren't that many people on the plane. We walked over to the rental car area, got our car, looked at stuff in the airport and finally went out to where they stored all the vehicles. We found ours. It was a white Dodge Journey and we were definitely going to have plenty of room. It almost looked like a SUV mini van hybrid. I was sad we didn't have Pennsylvania plates on it. Instead, we had Massachusetts plates. I've never had a rental car with the state license plate that I was visiting. Some day.
I got the Nuvi all dialed up and we headed into Pittsburgh on the 376 and just followed the directions until we got there. We stopped outside the city of Pittsburgh to get some stuff at one of the Walmart's. We bought some peanut butter, lunchables, a salad, some bananas, drinks and a few Penguins things because we knew they would be cheaper here. We got back on the freeway and continued with Nuvi's directions. We got to drive through the Fort Pitt Tunnel, which was pretty awesome. I had set it to the incline but once we got there we found out that there was road construction and we couldn't turn around. We opted to just drive up to Mount Washington instead. We found a place to park and walk to the view points. The view was magnificent from up here and the weather was great for early November.
The only bad thing about coming in the fall is the shorter days and a lot to see. We had to pick and choose on the first day and we grabbed geocaches as we went.
From Mount Washington we decided we wanted to go down to the North Shore where all the sports stadiums were along with the Mr. Rogers statue and the North Shore Riverwalk. We found a parking spot near the sports stadiums, paid $4.00 to the meter for about an hour, set a timer and started walking around.
We walked over to Heinz Field and discovered it was a very small and really ugly stadium. We were not impressed at all. They should have kept Three Rivers Stadium. However, we know places evolve and everyone wanted their own stadium so Three Rivers Stadium turned into Heinz Field and PNC Park.
We walked a short distance to the river's edge to start our walk along the river walk. I wanted my first Pennsylvania geocache to be It's a Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood (GC7B9T4) virtual cache, at the Mr. Roger's statue.
To mark it as a find, we had to count some of the stuff nearby and send it to the cache owner as well as take a photo with it. We took care of that in no time. Two ladies walked up to us and asked us to take their picture, you could tell they were from another country when they spoke, I asked them if they've seen the movie yet and they said no, not yet, but they want to. They thanked us for the photo and they went on their way. There was also a traditional cache nearby, The Elves Answer the Call of Duty (GC14GAH) which was near the fallen police officers memorial. There is one similar to this on in Centralia so I made quick work of this one.
We continued walking down the river trail.
We made it as far as the 9th Street Bridge before we turned around and started heading back towards the rental car. We saw several statues, checked out PNC Park, enjoyed the several historic bridges along the way, it was just fun exploring the area. Mom took a lot of photos along the way. My favorite bridge was the 6th Street Bridge because it was yellow and one of the well known ones in the city. It encompassed and captured the ambiance of the city.
There were times I kinda wished I was from Pittsburgh. There was just so much character here! One the way back we picked up one more cache near the Vietnam Veteran's Memorial, We Remember (GC4JC0W). It was tricky because the coords were off and I found it on the ground (not sure if it was suppose to be there) so I made a note to the cache owner to maybe check up on this one.
We got back to the rental just as our time ran out. We timed that perfectly. Mom wanted to go to the Old Allegheny City area where all the "artsy" people live. This included Randyland, the Poetry Houses, Mexican War Streets and The Mattress Factory. I plugged in the address for the area and followed Nuvi to the Central Northside part of Pittsburgh. We followed the directions and saw The Mattress Factory, we tried parking there but there were no available spots so we moved on down the street and found a place to park inside the neighborhood. We decided we didn't want to pay $20 to go inside The Mattress Factory so we moved onto Randyland.
Randyland was hands down the weirdest place I've ever been. Randy Gilson is a master in the art of making something worthwhile out of what is seen as worthless. He began the Old Allegheny Garden Society in 1982, when he saw his neighborhood, specifically North Taylor Avenue, cluttered with garbage and abandoned homes. Inspired to connect people and bring beauty to his community, Randy spent the only unemployment funding he ever collected on whiskey barrels. He filled each barrel with dirt and flowers, and began placing them along the Mexican War Streets. As he continued to plant, people took notice and children volunteered to help, which created what Randy calls "peoplehood - people projects by people" or neighbors wanting to talk, work together, and get to know each other where they wouldn't have otherwise. Over time, Old Allegheny Garden Society grew into 800 of these pop-up nature reserves comprised of whiskey barrel, trees, 8 parks and 50 vegetable gardens.
Randy's mastery of turning waste into wonder illustrates his belief that "because somebody thinks of it one way, there still may be another way and a third and fourth way of growing, achieving, zigging and zagging." According to him, "Randyland is our land interpreted by Randy - it is the love, the joy, the happiness, the understanding of all who enter her gates."
Randy envisions expanding Randyland to include the first floor of his home as well as an extended outdoor eating, seating and entertainment area where Art in Your Face community art happenings can take place. He hopes to continue to grow community gardens, art projects, and positive redevelopment of the community he loves.
We walked up to the strange, multicolored building with items you would find at a yard sale or a flea market. The place was covered in signs, trinkets, sculptures, garden pots, strange architecture -- this place was awesome! So many things to take in and look at! We were the only ones there so we did our own self tour. We spent probably an hour looking and taking photos of stuff. It reminded me a lot of my Grandmother's yard with all the plants and weird stuff in her yard. It made me miss her a lot. We walked over to the wooden kiosk and checked to see if there was anymore information that we needed to know about this unique place. We saw he had a camera hooked up so he knew no one was going to steal from him and walk away with it. We saw a few fliers and some merchandise to purchase. You stuck your money in a money box. Mom got a shirt and I got a button. We spent $21 at Randyland. It was worth it because it helps the community.
We walked down the street to look at Mexican War Streets and the Poetry Houses. The Mexican War Streets is a historic district that is well known for its row houses that were built during the Mexican-American War during the late 1840's. A lot of them have been restored and some were currently being renovated as we walked the streets.
Among some of those row houses were some of the Poetry Houses mom wanted to see. The Poetry Houses are a series of four (as of 2013) houses along a back street in Pittsburgh and are each painted as a work of art to honor the exiled foreign literary writers who've lived in them. It is part of Pittsburgh's "City of Asylum" project that began in 2004. It was pretty cool and I was happy mom put them on our list. We walked back to the rental.
At this point in the day I felt like this day was very long even though we lost three hours flying east. In real life it was about 1:00 p.m. but in our world it was really 10:00 a.m. The day seemed to be going slower than we thought it would. I didn't mind because then we were able to see more throughout our day. As we sat in the rental, I asked mom where we wanted to go next. She said she didn't know. I asked her if she wanted to go to Point State Park and see the fountain, she said sure.
I found the coordinates for the park and away we went. Some of the streets were confusing because there was a lot of construction on the city for this time of year so we had to do some redirecting. We eventually got on the road we wanted and made our way to the park. We pulled into the parking lot and had to pay $13. It was a good thing we planned to pay for parking and for those pesky turn pikes. We parked, grabbed what we needed and walked to the point. I was happy it was still warm enough to have the fountain on. As mom took pictures I worked on the two earthcaches, Allegheny + Monongahela = Ohio (GC5HRR2) which talked about the confluence of the three rivers and which one flows faster and What's the Point? Pittsburgh's 4th River? (GC66R15) which had me explore the aquifer underneath the city.
This was a cool spot and I am glad we came on such a nice day. We used the restroom and walked back to the rental.
I told mom I wanted to get one more geocache but that would take us to the South Oakland neighborhood. I really wanted to see Dan Marino's house he grew up in. Growing up, I was a huge fan of Dan Marino and the Miami Dolphins and to come this close to where he grew up, of course I was going to go see it. He even went to college at University of Pittsburgh which was just down the street from his house. We followed Nuvi's directions and went to the cache first, Dan Marino's Couch - Redux (GC4GTWX).
Mom sat in the rental while I walked down to get it. It took a couple minutes but I found the cache and the couch. Afterwards, we drove into his neighborhood and took a picture of me wearing my Dan Marino jersey in front of his childhood home.
We drove through the University of Pittsburgh just to say we did and to see it, the traffic was terrible though, but we had to remember it was late Wednesday afternoon and there were going to be cars and people wandering around.
Mom wanted to go to the Strip District to check out some of the shopping and the food options. We finally made it down to the Strip District and found a parking spot on the back side of the building and paid the meter $2.00. We walked around a bit, bought a few things...mostly souvenirs for our family and friends and Penguin stuff because I would rather buy it here than buy it online and pay for shipping and handling.
I asked mom what she wanted for dinner and she said let's try that Primanti Brothers place. I said sure, let's do it. I first heard of this place while I was buying groceries at the Walmart that was near our house. After work one day, I was wearing one of my Penguin sweatshirts and a guy in the other self check out area saw my sweatshirt and asked me if I was from Pittsburgh. I told him no, I am from here but I am a huge fan and are going to a home game in November with my mom. He said that was awesome and rattled off a bunch of stuff to see, do and eat while I was there. One of those places was Primanti Brothers.
We walked inside, got a menu and checked out what was being offered. The sandwiches all sounded amazing but I am not a huge fan of cole slaw. It was on every sandwich. I got over it and decided that I was in a new place and why not try new things? I got a roast beef sandwich and fries were on the sandwich.
Mom really couldn't eat a sandwich because of her braces so she decided on chili cheese fries. We paid for our food and walked back out to the rental car. Mom and I both decided to was time to leave town and head to Somerset. We left Pittsburgh around 6:30.
We got onto the 376 and left down heading east. Eventually, that road turned into the 76 and put us on our first turnpike. Neither of us have been on a turnpike so we weren't sure what we were suppose to do. We did bring extra money just in case we needed it while driving on these. It would take us about an hour to get to the town of Somerset. It took us a little bit of time to get out of Pittsburgh because there was a little bit of congestion but once we got out of it we had no other slow downs.
When it was our turn to get off of the Penna Turnpike, we pulled up beside the booth and a lady told us good evening. I told her we weren't from here and have never used a turnpike before...then I asked her how they worked. She was very nice and explained that where you got on a where you get off matter, you basically paid for each exit you drove past. Each exit costs money depending how long you were on the interstate. She handed me a ticket and showed me. The exit we got off of only cost us $8 from where we started from. If we were going from Pittsburgh to Philadelphia on this particular interstate it would cost a lot more money. I would go broke if I lived here because I would travel around too much. Then I figured out that not all the interstates were turnpikes so if you knew your way around you could avoid them. I handed her what we owed and thanked her for the explanation. She added you're welcome and to have a great night.
The hotel was easy to find because it was right off the interstate. I dropped mom off so she could check us in and then to let me know where to park so we didn't have to pull our luggage very far. I backed the rental car into a space, we grabbed our luggage and went to room 211 with two queen beds. I was so tired. Today was very long but we did get to see a lot of stuff on our list. I got in a shower and into clean clothes, I did some internetting for a bit and then we both went to bed just before 10 p.m. Tomorrow was going to be another long day.
The first day we learned that the bridges in Pittsburgh were awesome. There are 446 bridges in the Pittsburgh area. Mom and I determined that the city was/seemed pretty clean. There was not a lot of trash or homeless people. There are lots of neighborhoods and boroughs. Most houses are build upward and are made out of bricks. There was a lot of traffic within the city and lots of detours which frustrated us because we were not from here. We never felt unsafe while we were exploring.
Mom and I grabbed 6 caches, one virtual, three traditionals, two earthcaches, one new state and one new county.
Next Adventure: Covered Bridges, United 93 Memorial, Hershey, PA, Scranton, PA and New York
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