Pittsburgh Trip

            Last April I visited Pittsburgh and then Niagara Falls with my family.  I know that sounds random.  I’ll explain.  We wanted to see Niagara Falls; my mom has always wanted to see them.  But how long can you look at a couple of water falls?  I wanted to visit a new stadium.  The closest stadiums to Niagara Falls are Toronto and Cleveland.  However, we are National League people; Pittsburgh wasn’t that much farther than Cleveland, so that is where we decided to go.  The plan was to fly into Pittsburgh, spend a couple of days, drive to Niagara Falls, spend a few days and then fly back out of Buffalo.  Honestly, I was most excited about Pittsburgh.  Aside from being a huge baseball fan about to visit a new ballpark, I am also hockey fan and my team is the Pittsburgh Penguins.  We were not going to try to go to a Penguins game.  The playoffs would have been in full swing by then and we did not try to plan the trip around them.  It worked out that they were not in town while we were anyway.  I was very excited nonetheless. 

            We arrived in Pittsburgh early Saturday afternoon and had tickets to the Pirates game that night.  One of the first observations I had about the city was that every third or fourth person I saw had on something associated with the Penguins, Pirates or Steelers.  Hailing from a state with no professional sports franchises, I was jealous.  I would love to live in a city that has professional sports teams because there seemed to be such a great sense of camaraderie.  I was very excited about visiting PNC Park.  It is not a huge park, but it is built like a classic ballpark; which became popular after the round, all-purpose, cookie-cutter stadiums.  I am sorry to say that I did not see near as much of the park as I would have liked.  As anyone would (or at least, should) we watched the weather for a week or so before leaving.  Every day the expected temperatures for our trip dropped.  That night at PNC Park was COLD.  The residents of Pittsburgh may not have felt this extreme about it because they are probably a little more used to it: but being from Alabama, we were very cold.  We went straight to our seats and the only time any of us moved was when my mom and I went to get hot chocolate for everyone.  We did have a great view of the field and Roberto Clemente Bridge behind centerfield.  The Pirates beat the Cardinals 2-0 and that was A.J. Burnett’s debut as a Pirate.  I would love to go back to PNC Park and actually get to walk around.  I understand they have a river walk.  I bet that’s nice.  It was just not happening that night. 



Roberto Clemente Bridge behind centerfield



            As I mentioned, the weather was very cold.  Here’s how cold it was.  We were supposed to spend two nights in Pittsburgh.  The next day (after our first night) we decided we needed to leave for Niagara Falls a day early because an ice storm was coming.  Literally, the local weather said the ice storm would be worst between Pittsburgh and Buffalo; the exact route we were taking.  The lovely people at the hotel in Pittsburgh agreed and were kind enough to let us out of our second night’s reservations and luckily the hotel we had reservations with at Niagara Falls were able to have our rooms available a day early.

The falls as seen from the Maid of the Mist tour

The Niagara Falls are beautiful.  Our first couple of days there were also cold and we really only had one day (our last day) with temperate weather.  It snowed, and when you’re from Alabama, that’s big.  It did not stick, but it was so pretty falling.  I am probably the only one from that trip that would say that as cold as it was, it was bearable.  That is because I was the most prepared with ear muffs, gloves and scarves.  We had a great view of the falls from our room and we visited some of the restaurants and shops on those cold days.  One of the most ironic moments in the trip was when we went to Margaritaville, ate Cheeseburgers in Paradise, drank margaritas and then walked back out into the snow.  I looked for a shirt in the gift shop that read, “The weather is here, I wish you were beautiful.” but I could not find one I liked; it would have been fitting.  That last day was great.  We took the Maid of the Mist tour, visited the flower clock, saw a couple of films about the falls.  The most interesting thing about the falls is how much they have eroded over the last few hundred years and the methods they are using to slow the erosion now.  It is amazing to think that they can slow down such a powerful force of nature.  They really are something to see.   




Our view of Niagara Falls from our room