11/3/2021
Before I left Cleveland for Pittsburgh yesterday I took a quick trip to the house from A Christmas Story. It did have the leg lamp in the window. Several houses on this block were dedicated to museums and attractions to the house.
Thank goodness I’ve gotten to a city that has an actual metro rail system. I parked on the South side of Mt Washington and was able to take the metro downtown. I haven’t had a good steak in a long time so I found a Fogo de Chao right next to the train station to stuff myself for lunch. My first stop was Fort Pitt on the confluence of the three rivers. There was a surprising lack of historical signage here. I took some pics of downtown on my way to the fort. The coolest building downtown is easily the PPG complex. It’s a giant glass castle with smaller a glass keep around it. On sunny days the camera on the Pixel 5 is awesome.
From the fort I made my way to the Steelers and Pirates stadiums on the North side of downtown. The Mr. Rogers monument was right on the water in front of the Steelers stadium. They were playing episodes over a speaker at the statue too.
The way Heinz Field, the Steelers stadium, is set up right on the water was neat. You could walk essentially through one side of the stadium. A few blocks away is PNC Park, Pirates Stadium. After seeing the stadium I headed back across the river to downtown.
Downtown Pittsburgh is very dense. It’s pretty much a bunch of high rises and skyscrapers cut up by streets. There are a few parks, but overall very tight. The Union Trust Building is beautiful. It’s a gothic style building built in 1916 filled with a bunch of shops. One of the other neat old buildings on my way South was the Allegheny County Courthouse.
I got lost trying to find my way across the Liberty Bridge and once I got on it I wasn’t sure where I was going to end up. I got about a quarter of the way across and decided that I’d come too far and couldn’t turn back. Luckily on the other side I was able to get down to the river and didn’t have to go through the tunnel on foot. I made my way down to the Three Rivers Heritage Trail and over to the Hard Rock Café. I took a little break on the trail at this point. There were a lot of bridges I’d walked so far. At this point I got back on the train and went back to the van. When I got back I drove up to the top of Mt. Washington. I wanted to go for a hike, but I was really worn out. I parked and walked up to one of the overlooks on the Emerald View Trail. The top of the mountain is very pretty, but everything is on an angle.
Now I’m on my way to Niagara Falls.