Friday, June 12, 2009

Boy My Life Sure Seems Boring

At least according to my blog...But I we have had a couple of adventures in the past few weeks.

Like this one:
Our Trip to Pittsburgh, PA

We went over Memorial Day weekend. It was a fun road trip with just the two of us to see a new city. And, it turned out to be a surprisingly nice place. I really liked it with all the bridges and the water and such.
Our first stop was to the Carnegie Science Center. Which, at first had me worried that we had paid too much for a kids museum, but it was awesome!!! They have all sorts of hands-on activities that give you an understanding of light, weather, sound, aviation and all sorts of other things.
Here I am building a structure to withstand an earthquake.

We got to go inside an actual submarine.

It was a lot of fun, and it made me feel like a kid again, which is a tough feat, considering how old I am getting.

The science center is located across the street from the home of the world champion Pittsburgh Steelers, Heinz Field.

Part of our reason for going was because Guy Fieri on the Food Network's "Diners, Drive-ins and Dives" is in Pittsburgh a lot. We like to watch the show, and have decided that we're gonna try to hit up some of these joints. So, in Pittsburgh we went to not one, but two restaurants that had been featured in the show.
First was to Big Jims, where I got an open-faced roast beef sandwich and fries. They put the fries on the sandwich and put the gravy on it. It was delicious.

The other was the Dor Stop Restaurant, located in a nice little neighborhood within the city. We went there for breakfast on Sunday morning. They have the most amazing pancakes ever. You should definitely check the place out.
Saturday night was probably the coolest part. We went to a redeveloped area on the water front called Center Station (something like that). It's been made into a nice shopping/dining area with all sorts of activities going on at night, including a cool fountain that does a show to the music. Unfortunately, the battery in my camera died so I couldn't get pictures of that, or the "incline." The incline is a mining trolley that takes you up to the top of a hill in the city, right by the downtown, and you get an amazing view. Below is a picture I found (cause, as I said, my battery was dead). I wish it showed how cool it was--and we were there at night, so it was even better.
After breakfast on Sunday, we planned to go to the Frank Lloyd Wright house, Falling Water, cause I've wanted to see that ever since I took an architecture class my freshman year in college. I called the place that morning, but there was no availability for tickets, so we decided to go to the zoo, and will go to the house some other time.
After being mis-led by the GPS to the opposite side of town we finally found the Zoo by calling to get a better address (based on the fact that the first selection on their call menu is "if you're having trouble with GPS, press one" I imagine that it's a pretty common mistake). It was a pretty cool zoo. They had all sorts of animals, and you could even see them there, which you can't hardly ever do here in DC's zoo. My favorites were the Polar Bear cause you could get so close to him.

And the Tiger Shark tunnel. (check out the guy's look in the reflection--I hadn't noticed it until just now).

All-in-all, I have to say that in my humble opinion, Pittsburgh is a pretty cool place.



Our Next adventure took us to Connecticut:

We went up there about two weeks ago for an open-house for Mel's family and friends who didn't make it to our wedding. It was nice to have good food, meet the extended in-laws and get a bit of loot to bring home with us.

We flew up, had the openhouse two hours later, then we got to take Mel's mother's birthday present from a year ago out for a spin.I think it suits us quite nicely.


I got to see more sights of Simsbury this time than I did at Christmas. For example, we drove past the haunted tavern, where Anabell Pettybone is roumerd to have been sighted by multiple guests after her violent murder at the hand of her husband.
And this:The largest tree in all of Connecticut (how they know? I don't know, but now you've seen it too) It is pretty big.

And I love going to cemeteries, especially when they're old. This one had graves from 1707. It was pretty cool. They have old-school writing on the head stones and some of them look like they're sliding down the hill cause the earth's moved over the past couple of centuries.
It was a quick trip, but it was a lot of fun.
So, there you have it. We do have good times since we've been married. If anyone has ideas for other fun adventures for newlyweds, I'll be happy to hear them.