We just finished up the third of our one week stints—in Des Moines, Columbus, and then Pittsburgh.
(Emma interrupted here to say the following about Pittsburgh: “Not much to say. We did not like it. The bridges where the only nice part. Oh and the Mister Rodgers stuff, but other than that it was one giant sink hole.”)
Saying we did not like Pittsburgh is a bit of an exaggeration; it was fine. However, a bus did fall into a sinkhole outside our hotel the morning we arrived, so that part is accurate (The driver and passenger on board were not seriously injured).
As Emma mentioned, the bridges are nice. They are the first thing we noticed as we rode in on a bus from Columbus. Most of them are painted this nice Yellow color, which was fun. I’m sure there’s a story behind them, but we didn’t look that up.
After we arrived, we went to Point State Park where the Allegheny, and Monongahela Rivers converge to form the Ohio river. There used to be two forts located there in the late 1750s. The first, Fort Duquesne, was occupied by the French, but they destroyed it before retreating from British forces who later built Fort Pitt. Now you can see the footprints of the old forts along with a large water fountain and some very nice looking mixed-use (cycling, running, walking) trails.
When we arrived in Pittsburgh, the weather was perfect and I missed not having a bike to explore all the great trails—one of which goes almost uninterrupted to Washington, D.C.—but the rest of the week was rainy and cold, so I wouldn’t have used it much.
On one of the rainy days, we did go to Bicycle Heaven, which is part bike shop part bike museum. They have a huge collection of old Schwinns along with other unique, vintage bikes. It was a bit overwhelming with many of the bikes stacked as close to each other as possible on the ground and even hanging from the ceiling, but it seemed like they had the real interesting bikes on the ends or set apart, and the ones in the stakes were variations on similar bikes. Was it what I would have considered Bike Heaven, no, but I did enjoy it!
The other highlight of our explorations was the newly renovated Mister Rogers exhibit at the Children’s Museum. My sister has an affinity for Mister Rogers so we went for her, and it did not disappoint. The actual museum portion was fun with a lot of interactive activities to participate in, and the Mister Rogers exhibit was really nicely done with a couple of his sweaters on display along with his shoes and some of the puppets from the Neighborhood of Make-Believe. We just learned after we left that the Senator John Heinz History Center has some of the set pieces and even more artifacts from the show (including the Great Oak Tree and McFeely’s “Speedy Delivery” tricycle!). I guess we’ll have to give Pittsburgh another try someday for that, but for now, it’s time to explore Cincinnati.
-B
