back from pittsburgh

The Excellent Wife and I visited friends who live in a suburb of Pittsburgh this weekend. Through a combination of hard work and good luck, they will be able to retire in a few months (on a full pension, a thing few people of my age will have), and they will be leaving that area, so they, and TEW and I, decided that it would be a good time to visit, as we could benefit from their local knowledge.

These friends had lived on a cute little farm in the Albany-Schenectady area for years until the job moved to a Pittsburgh suburb about five years ago, and it's only with reluctance that they moved, and they are leaving at the first opportunity; they've already bought the retirement house. They do not love Pittsburgh, for a number of reasons, one of which is that they are not sports people.

It's not useful to talk about Pittsburgh without talking about sports. A Google image search for "Pittsburgh logo" this morning showed seven of the first eight results, and twelve of the first 16, are clearly sports team logos, either professional or college (a similar search for New York logo shows four of eight and nine of 16). The Penguins, the Pittsburgh hockey team, was in the playoffs and lost the first three games, but won the fourth; the fifth was to be played the night of the first day we were there, and we could not escape the Penguins jerseys and t-shirts that were being worn in support. The editorial that day was about a retro jersey that the Steelers would wear later in the year, and, as we were touring the city, I was surprised at the amount of sports logo gear for sale, and the number of vendors who sold only sports logo gear. I don't remember as much sports logo clothing being worn anywhere else as I saw there.

Pittsburgh was a steel city, and there are reminders all around, in the empty steel mills (many of which have been reclaimed for other purposes), in the huge number of train tracks, in some of the nifty historical areas. The Pittsburgh three rivers area was important during the French and Indian Wars (which, in the rest of the world, was the Seven Year's War, largely between Britain and France), but my friends tell me that the locals think of history as being largely about steel. And steel is fascinating: huge machines, railroads dedicated solely to a single steel plant, and huge amounts of money, as evidenced by the excellent period architecture in many parts of the city, as well as the number of bridges. There are bridges everywhere. They need them, with three rivers, and countless creeks, streams, brooks, and ravines.

We saw the Heinz History Center, a monument to local pride, and walked the strip (originally a warehouse area, now nifty food and arts vendors, and plenty of places to get sports logo gear). We tried to do the art museum, but we had a dispute about opening time; an online resource said it opened at 10am,, but the sign in front said noon on Sundays, and, with weather threatening our timely return home, we decided to go to the Phipps Conservatory prior to our return home.

We're home now, working on losing the weight we gained and planning what to do when we return to work. Our thanks to our hosts, gracious and informative. And I'm hoping for nice weather next weekend, for the bike club spring fling and the Tour de Franklin.