Sabbatical – First trip? Pittsburgh!

I took a sabbatical 2013-14, to study. But I did other stuff, too. Especially travel.

With my classes only on Tuesday and Thursday, I thought I would be out of town just about every other weekend. All of those weekends, by the way, four days long. Didn’t happen. I traveled a lot, and loved it, but cost and reality held down the number of long weekends by quite a bit.

Anyhow, I didn’t know this when I more or less threw a dart at a map, and decided to go to Pittsburgh in September (this is last Fall). With a long weekend a peaceful ride on Amtrak was possible. I used PriceLine to get a downtown hotel for a pretty good price. But I hit a snag. The uptown IND was really out of service Friday morning, September 13 (you can look it up, something bad, just don’t remember what) and despite my creative efforts, I missed the train. Got the next one, but it cost me. And the connection in DC was late… The good news? This was the Cardinal, one of the most scenic trains in the east. My seat mate was a young woman with a minor political job in DC, who loved trains. I had great company right up to her stop,

The rest was a two day blur. I picked out a hotel on Trip Advisor without knowing what one it was. Good deal. Turned out to be the Marriott. And now it is so long ago, that I am having trouble putting my “sights” in order:

• PNC Park. The Pirates lost, but I had a very good seat in a truly great stadium, sitting with intense, yet friendly to out-of-towner, fans.
• The Warhol Museum. Pretty cool.
• Bridges. I think I crossed the Allegheny on two, the Monongahela on one.
• Inclines. Up the Monongahela. Down the Duquesne. With a drink on a terrace at the top, looking over the city.
• Point Park. Lovely. And the Ft Pitt Museum. Too fast.
• Wandered the Strip, the old dock district, and took a distillery tour.
• A walk along part of the Three Rivers Heritage Trail System

And then a return Amtrak train, daytime, lucked out and had nice company again, and a helluva view around “Horseshoe Curve” in Altoona.

It was not as much as I meant to do, and done a little too fast.  But what I did, I enjoyed. And if I had thought carefully, I might have wondered if this was going to be a common pattern during my sabbatical year.