Pittsburgh Vacation - Day 5

After some tense navigating Tuesday evening, and then beginning again to leave Morgantown, we headed down to Charleston.  For whatever reason, Bruce and I are NOT meshing in our driving and navigating, and he is being terribly gruff about it.  Enough to make me want to just yell "YOU DO IT!" but of course I cannot.  It seems that West Virginia streets, roads and highways are a tad different from other places we have driven in that they are not afraid to just switch things up in the lanes on the street, etc.  You can be driving along, happy as a clam, and all of a sudden the lane switches to a different name, number, even direction, turn, one way or the other.  Not only am I to be navigating the map, but I'm also supposed to know when that stuff is coming up.  Never mind the fact that I might also say to drive on a certain road and turn off on xyz street...if abc street comes up first he may go ahead and turn on that, and he will say he didn't know, he can't do it all!!! grrraaarrrgh!

Anyway, thankfully for once in our driving lives, we took the interstate to Charleston, so we had almost 2 hours of peacefulness after I told him he was not to get off of the highway for any reason!!!!  We've only been in the downtown area, and it's a pleasant enough area.  Bruce mentioned later in the evening that it does remind him of Topeka, in that there is worker activity in the daytime, but once 5:01 comes around, everyone heads out and everything closes up.

We started out going to the West Virginia History Center, which although your standard state museum, was very enjoyable. It had a nice array of exhibits, and it even kept Allison's attention. 

The museum and the capitol building, as well as the state office buildings seem to be in the same area, kind of like in a state complex. Just across the walkways and lawns is the state capitol building.  We were late enough in the day that we missed any type of guided tours, but we did just go ahead and go in and walk around.  The House and Senate must still be in session, but were not working directly when we were there. There were all sorts of suits wandering around the building, and the doors to both chambers were open, so we were able to peek inside for a little look.  It is pretty inside, with white marble, but not one of the more ornate capitols we have been in our travels.

We decided to go ahead stay in a Best Western that we found on the edge of the downtown area, down the street from The Clay Center.  That is where Allison is this morning (Thursday); and Bruce went over with her for a little bit. I'm to go over there and take a turn with her in a little while.  As soon as we are done there, we will probably go ahead and head out of town, and start making a turn to the west and then head back up north, making our way back towards Pittsburgh so we are able to fly back out in a few days.

I almost forgot:  Dinner last night was so.much.fun! (thank goodness)  There were not a lot of choices we found out as it seems much of the downtown area closes down at 5:01 as I mentioned earlier.  There was one restaurant, a place called "Pies and Pints", which happened to be open in the evenings. It is a pizza and beer place, but not just any pizza...yummy interesting pizza.  Poor Allison wasn't sure what she had gotten into as she LOVES pizza, but she's used to like Pizza Hut pizza.  We had half Chicken Gouda pizza and half Spinach Garlic and Feta pizza.  OMG!  Both were very good; and even Allison had to admit the Chicken Gouda pizza was good ("I said good, not great"), but the Spinach Garlic and Feta had to be my FAVORITE! It was so good. Just a wonderful mixture of flavors and spices and a little different texture with the feta cheese. It was fantastic!

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Pittsburgh Vacation - Day 4

We stayed in Morgantown, WV, home of the University of West Virginia Moutaineers, one of the newest members of the Big XII, Monday evening.   We were able to find the Morgantown Visitors Center early the first thing in the morning, which was a good thing. We certainly weren't able to find it the previous evening.  The lady at the visitor's center, Cookie, was AWESOME! She was a true gem...and very helpful.  She had maps and suggestions out the wazoo.  Before we left, Bruce wanted a picture of me standing next to Bob Huggins, basketball coach of the mens' team at UWV.  Huggins had spent one year at K-State before going back 'home' to UWV.

 It is kinda hard to see here, but that little yellow and blue cart looking thing is a type of public transportation system in Morgantown.  I am guessing it is aimed a lot at students at the university because it seems that the campus is pretty spread out.  It is called PRT (personal rapid transport), and they are little cars with like 8 seats, and standing room for probably like 4 or 5 more people.  We were there about mid-morning and the cars would pretty much just go "on demand"...whenever someone came who needed transport. It only cost $0.50 per person.

 We stopped at the Seneca Center before we left Morgantown, which was an old glass factory, which had been turned into retail and service space.  It had like photographer, real estate offices, a quilt shop, a woman's clothing shop, etc.

Upon leaving town, we drove through some moutainous miles with very very tall skinny trees.  It was very pretty to be driving along and seeing little waterfalls spewing from rocks along the side of the road. There was also a very quickly running river which had some mild rapids, which indicated that it was probably used for canoeing and kayaking.

We went to Arthurdale, WV, which was called "Eleanor's Little Town", a New Deal Project during the Great Depression, and a 'pet project' of First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt.  It was very interesting to learn about how this community began, and that 160 of the original 165 homesteads are still standing in the community.  I've provided a link to the website if you want to learn more about this community.

At this point we were planning to continue on south further into West Virginia. Unfortunately we made a wrong turn that we didn't realize we had made until we had made it almost to Maryland.  Oops.  So...we ended up deciding to head back toward Morgantown for the night. There was a restaurant that Cookie at the visitor's center had suggested, called "Apple Annie's" at Point Morgan (although we didn't know it was Pennsylvania), so we decided to head there.  We arrived at like 7:08, and we were turned away at the door, with the lady saying, "Oh, we close at 7:00. Sorry. Everything is turned off."  Oh, let's just say Bruce was less than charmed, and it was not a happy trip back down the highway. We ended up eating at Morgantown Brewery, and we stayed the night at Hotel Morgan, a Clarion hotel, which is definitely a historic hotel...very nice. So, fortunately, I think that helped to mend some bad feelings.


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Pittsburgh Vacation - Day 3

Decided today to get out of Pittsburgh for a few days.  We didn't really have anything in particular planned but Bruce had found a Frank Lloyd Wright house nearby. Fallingwaters to supposed to be one of the shining stars for FLW, which is saying a lot considering there are so many buildings that are designed and/or inspired by him. 

The house is about 1 1/2 hours south of Pittsburgh. When we left the city, it was kind of misty with the threat of more 'icky' weather.  The first 10 miles or so were just that...spitting mist, not bad at all. We stopped around Donagel for lunch at "Brady's", a fun little small town diner, and stopped at "The Country Store", another gem of finding on travels to look around at the eclectic selections.

Unfortunately, while we were doing all of that, the weather began deteriorating, and then deteriorating quite rapidly.  The spitting mist became spitting, then shooting ice pellets.  Literally.  Keep in mind that we were starting to enter into beginnings of some mountain country.  It wasn't terribly bad, but ....

By the last 3 to 5 miles outside of Fallingwaters it was getting pretty bad. The road was getting pretty slick from the build up of icy slushy pellets on the roadway.  The outside temperature was hovering around 32, then dipping to 30, and back up around 32.  We were pretty glad when we made it to the house. 

 Thinking that we would be the only fools...ahem...visitors to the property, boy were we wrong. There were actually many hearty souls making the "pilgrimage" to Fallingwaters.  Photos were not, unfortunately, but of course, not allowed inside of the house.

 This is the side of the guest house which is located above the main house.

 Looking down the path from the guest house to the main house.

 This picture is taken while standing on the bridge leading to the main house. The bridge is going over the creek, which was running pretty good off of the waterfall behind me.

 The main house of Fallingwaters right behind us.  An interesting aspect just over my shoulder towards the creek is a glassed in staircase leading to the creek from the main living area of the house.  The glass doors could be lifted up and moved out of the way to make one's way down the staircase to a small landing right at the creek.

So when we left Fallingwaters, the weather was much better and starting to clear off thank goodness. We were very close to the West Virginia state line, so we decided to head to Morgantown, via Connellsville and Uniontown, Pennsylvania (both, unfortunately, very sad, hard hit by the recession, towns).

Morgantown, WV, thusfar, is not that different unfortunately.  We are going to explore a little more tomorrow, and Bruce has found a few interesting possibilities for historical museums, etc.

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Pittsburgh Vacation - Day 2

In trying to maximize our travel visits, and appeal as much to all of us (very tough at times), we usually confront the travel guides and brochures when we get to the city. We had tried to do a little pre planning, but really not much. 

With today being a Sunday, too, sometimes it is hard to know what is open and what hours the things are open (as Sundays often have shortened hours).  We were pretty lucky today.

First off we visited the Senator Heinz History Center (red brick building in back). It was a really interesting museum with exhibits for adults and those for kids.  There was a wonderfully interesting exhibit on "1968" which I found incredibly intriguing. I even had to buy the book The 1968 Project.  The 60s are an interesting time for me. 

Remember Mrs. Beasley?  I so wish I still had my doll!!!!!

Mr. Rogers began his show in the Pittsburgh market.

There was a kids area, "Kidsylvania"....

After the Heinz History Center, Allison was off to the Children's Museum of Pittsburgh (rated in the Top 10 of children's museums by Parents magazine in 2011, as a banner in the atrium pointed out). It was nice. We both enjoyed ourselves. I think I really preferred the Indianapolis children's museum better, but this one was much different in that it had many more hands on create something areas.  Whereas many of the others had more imaginary play exhibits.  Nothing wrong with either type. 

There was a Backyard area, which essentially was an art studio. There were a lot of very different types of art creating going on here as opposed other art areas.

 They had screen printing today, which was very cool.

 An example of others' work prior to our arrival. I LOVE the blue cat.

 Wa-la!  Masterpiece!

 A climbing structure...kinda like a stand up mouse maze! :)

 This was the "Makeshop"...lots of hands on building...electric circuits, computer stuff, etc.

 This was in the "Attic"...Allison LOVED it...this was a display of puppets. The puppets were then displayed on a computer monitor that you could easily change and make move in different directions virtually.

 This is the "Garage"...lots of moving gadgets.

 The Attic again. In the back, up the stairs, was a "Gravity" room...it was freaky. The floor was tiled like 45 degree angle...talk about hard to walk and feeling a little woozy! gessh...  she could come out the other side down a slide (see gray tubes).

 In the "Garage" area...

Move with Art...there were many different things to do, but I liked this one. At the bottom there were levers, and you could push or pull and it would move different parts of this wooden body figure. It was heavy and tall, but just cool.

 This was in the "Move with Art" area...there was a camera, and you could make funny faces, and then it would put it in a moving mosaic on the screen on the wall. Allison's picture is shown here on the lower left hand square.

Bruce spent the day doing "Bruce things" including buying a new GPS system since we left home and forgot ours and there is no way that I have my map skills honed to do this type of city driving with just a map (and then not very good ones at that). I was so happy to see that. He went to several other places. He enjoyed bouncing around.

We had dinner at a placed called "Hofbrauhaus".  Bruce was in H.E.A.V.E.N.   It is styled after (and I would assume owned by the same folks) who own the Hofbrauhaus in Munich, Germany.  We went there when we were in Germany in 2003. The grand beer hall is huge just like in Munich. It was very cool. The food was good too!

The "Mad Bavarian"  was even there this evening for some live music. This also made Bruce very happy. :)

 A front shot of the restaurant.

 
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