Pittsburgh

My dad picked me up from work on Thursday night and we began the drive to Pittsburgh. We were headed to Kennywood, a park built in 1898 with roller coasters built in the 1920s.

Traffic on the way there was nutty. We got stuck in a traffic jam for about 2 hours that slowed us down for where we ended up staying that night. It also slowed down our arrival by 2 hours the following day.

I thought about stopping to see Musevia around 2 AM, but didn't do it (you're welcome Musevia!).

Apparently my dad has been to this park about 4 times before and has a tradition of never being able to follow the directions to find it. We continued this tradition on our trip. In all fairness, the mapquest directions are great until we got on the city streets of Pittsburgh. We stopped and asked a postman and he straightened us out.

The park was fabulous and even contains a steel roller coaster that is continually ranked as the "best" in the nation. The hilly terrain makes for great rides, the architects really used the landscape to their advantage.

There was an attraction where a guy dove from a height similar to the cliffs of Acapulco. I guess it's about 9 stories high. He hit the water at 60 mph and it was a 10 ft deep pool. It was freaking amazing!

We also continued dad's tradition of always ending up at the stadium on the way out of town. Luckily we asked a limo driver for directions, and he steered us toward our destination.


Lately, when I go out of state I like to incorporate looking at rescue dogs to adopt into my trip. I found a place on petfinder.com that had schnoodles (schnauzer-poodle mixes that don't shed). Ideally I would like a 30-40 lb little girl dog. The lady told me these girls (three of them!) were about 20 lbs. So we drove through part of West Virginia and to the middle of nowhere Ohio to see them. Her facilities were a thousand times better than the place I went to in Indiana a month ago, but the doggies were way too small. My dad thought that their "fighting weight" might be 15 lbs on a good day. =(

Aldo dodged another bullet, no new dog this weekend.

On our way back on track to the way home from the dog excursion, we drove through even MORE of the middle of nowhere Ohio. It turns out that's hardcore Amish country. Horses and buggies and bicycles a-plenty!

We stopped at a little farm that had goats and sheep to pet and feed, as well as goods to purchase (cash only!). We bought a fabulous black raspberry pie (and it was DELISH!).

After we left we saw some maniac pass THREE cars at once on the little country roads. It was a no passing zone, up a hill, on a curve. RIGHT after he finished there was a chain of 3 cars led by a couple on a motorcycle. The whole thing could have been really, really bad. What the hell was he thinking? I'm so glad there wasn't an accident.

Apparently Amish country is a destination for lots of folks. The area was super busy! We continued through miles of Amish country and shops before making our way back to anything that resembled a 4 lane highway.

While still on the 2 lane highway my dad saw a heron on the side of the road, which was huge and pretty cool. We talked about loading him into the car (we had room!) since we hadn't gotten a dog.

My dad thought he would be funny and play a trick where he held the map out the window and pretended the wind took it. But the joke was on him when the wind DID take it and he littered/lost our map. I called him an f-ing tard for losing the map (we were still trying to make it back to the interstate). But he felt SO DUMB about it that I figured that was punishment enough so I took back the "f-ing" part of my insult.

Closer to home I saw two deer right on the side of the interstate. That always freaks me out, like after I see deer, then clearly deer will jump in front of my car later on down the road. Luckily, it didn't happen.

My odometer rolled to over 100,000 miles on the trip. =( Have I mentioned that I want a new car? Need a new job and more funds first though.

All in all we had a great 3-day trip. I cherish the fact that I take these trips with my dad and that we travel so well together. We're planning a trip to France next summer.