Four Points by Sheraton Pittsburgh North Mars

This evening, on our way our of Steel City (Pittsburgh), we made a spontaneous decision to stop at Max & Erma's for dinner. The city was beautiful at night--lights from the skyscrapers reflecting off the river which in turn flowed beneath some picturesque bridges. These ...

... to watch while we ate chips and salsa, then returned the DVD for another, which we watched later. Kelsey loved being able to cook dinner--and I mean beyond preparing microwave pasta dishes. She made ranch chicken and peas, and I did the dishes. Kinda like normal life :)

We're thankful for our little room in Candlewood. It'll be a nice home base for a while. Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go make some tea.

... lots of huge, massive, grand, opulent
churches.



Things we Learned:

·
Several of the world’s travel magazines have
designated Pittsburgh
among the top 10 destinations. No doubt,
they certainly have more-than-average riverfront vantages.



June’s Comments:

I’m sure that Pittsburgh holds the
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States jimcabay

... br>
· Heinz Field – The football stadium where the Pittsburgh Steelers play.

· Strip District – A famous destination for dining and entertainment where by-gone era industrial buildings and warehouses have been converted into a bustling marketplace by day and trendy nightclubs, microbreweries and restaurants for night life enthusiasts.

· PPG Place – ...

... It was like heaven on earth. My favourite art, all in one place. All from Mr. Warhol, but to top it off, the temporary exhibit was Shepard Fairey, the guy who made that famous Obama stencil, and also the guy who did the Obey Andre the Giant stencil and designed some White Stripes album covers and Smashing Pumpkin's Zeitgeist. Awwwwesome. I could've easily spent a few hours just there.

However, it was not to be.

Steph, Lee and I left the exhibit at exactly at the time we were ...

... wasn't that she was in "period" character, she just really talked like somebody from the early 19th century. You could tell she just lived and breathed this house. I WISH I had a video, just of her. I should have asked her to talk to me outside....

After a tour of the rest of the grounds on our own, and a visit to the art gallery, (which had a really great photography exhibit on an old children's hospital) we were off to the strip district for a kind of walking lunch tour ...

... and vegan cookies. We met the owner and then checked out some of the old architecture and the "doughboy" statue.

You can find these types statues all over the USA, commemorating the deaths of soldiers in WWI. Why is it called a doughboy? There are many explanations... Our tour guide says that it refers to men who wiped their hands free of chalky-white soil on their pants while training in the southwest USA.

Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States starlagurl

... we would be meeting at 6 p.m., rather than 6:30. So, he was there waiting for us when we got there. Allison, of course, was there at 6:30, the actual time that I told her we would meet.

I ordered a Pittsburgh salad, complete with French fries, steak and cheese... weird but good I guess. I don't understand why they couldn't just serve it all on one plate.

We chatted away, and Erwin ...

... week.

We threw around his foxtail. A weird tennis ball with a tail at the end of it that you can catch, and then we played circle soccer, a really ingenious way of playing soccer with only one goal, and a giant exercise ball and then another game that was just invented, called fricket. Kind of a mixture of cricket and baseball, played with the aforementioned foxtail.

Some videos uploaded below document ...

... daughter overwhelmed by something called "love", and who will be getting married this weekend. Evidently weddings are somewhat pricey these days. A word of warning for Andi and Mike. The food and drink in Tahiti is very expensive and we will be somewhat frugal there. That of course means we need to "stock up" before we leave Monday. As the traveling bobcats will all be at Kelley's nuptuals, the Humphries might want to think about raising their home equity line of credit.