Pittsburgh 2011

Note: This travelog was written in 2018, so many details have long been forgotten since we took the trip.

	Thursday, July 28, 2011: We needed to go to Kent, Ohio, to help Jill move out of her apartment, and decided to make a side trip to Pittsburgh first and do some sightseeing.
	This was only our second visit to West Virginia, ...
	... so we celebrated by getting some Dairy Queen in Wheeling.
	There's West Virginia, folks!
	It was very late by the time we made it to Pittsburgh, but it was really cool to see the Pittsburgh skyline as we emerged from the Fort Pitt Tunnel. If you look at the larger version of this photo, you can see a green Batman logo on one of the buildings (just above the yellow signs) because "The Dark Knight Rises" was being filmed here.
	Well, okay, we'll just crop out the rest of the photo and show it to you.
	Here's the view of Monongahela Incline lit up in blue across the water.
	Friday, July 29, 2011: We started out Friday with a hop-on, hop-off bus tour.
	We drove through Pittsburgh's colorful neighborhoods.
	Here's one of the original Carnegie Libraries.
	More cool neighborhood.
	And more.
	Here's the Monongahela Incline that we had seen lit up in blue the night before.
	Here's the Fort Pitt Tunnel. If you've never approached Pittsburgh this way before, do it. It's very dramatic to come out of a tunnel and suddenly see all of Pittsburgh.
	Here's the Duquesne Incline, which we'd be visiting later on.
	This is the view to the northwest on the West End Bridge over the Ohio River, ...
	... and this is the view to the southeast.
	Here's the Carnegie Science Center.
	There's the Duquesne Incline again across the river.
	It's difficult to see, but that's a statue of Mister Rogers sitting on a bench, tying his shoes. Fred Rogers was born near here and spent a good part of his life here.
	Here's PNC Park, home of the Pittsburgh Pirates.
	Here's another view of it from the Andy Warhol Bridge over the Allegheny River. The other yellow bridge is the Roberto Clemente Bridge.
	The yellow bridges inspired this Transformer sculpture.
	There's St. Stanislaus Kostka Church at the end of this street.
	We took notes on what we wanted to see up close after our tour, and headed back to this section of town later.
	Cool mural.
	Cool outdoor bakery stand.
	This is the Senator John Heinz History Center.
	More driving. It's pretty great to be on the top deck of a double-decker bus in the sunshine with almost no one else onboard.
	Cool building.
	Our tour concluded at Southside Works after crossing the Hot Metal Bridge over the Monongahela River.
	After the tour, we jumped in the van and retraced some of our earlier steps.
	We visited the Duquesne Incline to enjoy the beautiful view of the famous three rivers.
	Up we go!
	There's the view of downtown Pittsburgh, with the three rivers (Ohio, Monongahela, and Allegheny) converging at the point on the left.
	This is the view looking north, ...
	... and here's a closer look at Heinz Field, home of the Pittsburgh Steelers.
	We spent a few minutes at the top posting pictures and soaking in the sun ...
	... before heading back down again.
	We headed back to the historic Strip District to shop at Peace, Love, and Little Donuts. This shop opened here just two years earlier but as of 2018, they now have franchises all over the US.
	This pot of flowers was in the Strip District somewhere. These lantanas are beautiful, ...
	... but it is this hummingbird moth that really caught our attention.
	Back in our hotel room (Quality Inn University Center), we sampled our purchases from Peace, Love, and Little Donuts. Delicious!
	In the late afternoon, we headed to the Hofbräuhaus.
	We had been to the Hofbräuhaus in Munich in 2010, but this was our first visit to a location in the US.
	We were there to see our friends Karen and Sherri.
	Our little mascot, Orchy, helped us drink some beer, ...
	... eat a huge pretzel, ...
	... and deliver a message from Karen to Chris at Orchard.
	We had a great time singing in German, catching up, and drinking, ...
	... but at no time did we attempt this feat of consumption. After saying goodbye to our friends, we spent the night again in our hotel and then drove to Kent to help Jill move out of her apartment. ** THE END **