Travelogue - Pittsburgh
So, we spent the past weekend in Pittsburgh, and we had a wonderful time. Everyone we met was incredibly friendly and helpful - and they all seemed surprised that we out-of-towners were vacationing there! (Of course, we encountered a lot of surprise at our offices, when we said where we were going - shock and dismay that anyone would go to *Pittsburgh* for a getaway weekend...)
The ostensible reason for our trip was to watch the Washington Nationals play the Pittsburgh Pirates in PNC Park. We had *great* tickets for the game, and we loved the park (especially the walk over the pedestrian-only-on-game-days Roberto Clemente Bridge.) Yes, the Nationals lost, but we survived the heartbreak.
On Saturday, we went to the Andy Warhol museum. There was an exhibit on "The Body Politic" about political statements made my 1960s downtown artists, and another on "The F Word" - feminist art in the past three decades. The remaining five floors of the warehouse-type building were dedicated to Warhol. Interestingly (to this former copyright lawyer), we could take photographs of any of the Warhol works. (And yes, all the ones you've seen before were there - Campbell soup cans, Marilyn, Jackie, Elvis...)
Having obtained enough culture for the day, we spent the afternoon on the Strip, a gentrifying neighborhood of warehouses, with lots of little stores, restaurants, etc. We had amazing ice cream sundaes at an old-fashioned, family-run ice cream parlor, and we stocked up on Penzey's Spices on the way back to the hotel. We ate dinner at Lidia's Pittsburgh (very good Italian food, on the upscale end of the spectrum), and then we collapsed in our wonderful, air-conditioned hotel room.
Sunday, we decided to go to Fallingwater (on the theory that we could very well return to Pittsburgh for pleasure or business, but we wouldn't likely have the time or inclination to take the hour drive south to the Frank Lloyd Wright house.) We were both enchanted with the house, the tour, the grounds -- everything about it. I've been lucky enough to see a number of Wright homes (in Oak Park, at Taliesin West, just outside of DC, a Usonian home that was built behind the American History museum one summer, etc.) But I had never seen one designed for wealthy people, for owners who knew and appreciated art and who had specific ideas of what *they* wanted. The tour takes you through the entire house *and* the guesthouse. I look forward to going back in a different season, to see how much the weather and environment change the view of the house.
So, that was my weekend. (I spent yesterday at one of our branch offices at work, lifting far too many books.)
Tell me what you've done lately that is different. Or wild. Or wonderful. Or mildly intriguing :-)
Mindy, who would rather be back out on the road...
The ostensible reason for our trip was to watch the Washington Nationals play the Pittsburgh Pirates in PNC Park. We had *great* tickets for the game, and we loved the park (especially the walk over the pedestrian-only-on-game-days Roberto Clemente Bridge.) Yes, the Nationals lost, but we survived the heartbreak.
On Saturday, we went to the Andy Warhol museum. There was an exhibit on "The Body Politic" about political statements made my 1960s downtown artists, and another on "The F Word" - feminist art in the past three decades. The remaining five floors of the warehouse-type building were dedicated to Warhol. Interestingly (to this former copyright lawyer), we could take photographs of any of the Warhol works. (And yes, all the ones you've seen before were there - Campbell soup cans, Marilyn, Jackie, Elvis...)
Having obtained enough culture for the day, we spent the afternoon on the Strip, a gentrifying neighborhood of warehouses, with lots of little stores, restaurants, etc. We had amazing ice cream sundaes at an old-fashioned, family-run ice cream parlor, and we stocked up on Penzey's Spices on the way back to the hotel. We ate dinner at Lidia's Pittsburgh (very good Italian food, on the upscale end of the spectrum), and then we collapsed in our wonderful, air-conditioned hotel room.
Sunday, we decided to go to Fallingwater (on the theory that we could very well return to Pittsburgh for pleasure or business, but we wouldn't likely have the time or inclination to take the hour drive south to the Frank Lloyd Wright house.) We were both enchanted with the house, the tour, the grounds -- everything about it. I've been lucky enough to see a number of Wright homes (in Oak Park, at Taliesin West, just outside of DC, a Usonian home that was built behind the American History museum one summer, etc.) But I had never seen one designed for wealthy people, for owners who knew and appreciated art and who had specific ideas of what *they* wanted. The tour takes you through the entire house *and* the guesthouse. I look forward to going back in a different season, to see how much the weather and environment change the view of the house.
So, that was my weekend. (I spent yesterday at one of our branch offices at work, lifting far too many books.)
Tell me what you've done lately that is different. Or wild. Or wonderful. Or mildly intriguing :-)
Mindy, who would rather be back out on the road...
As for Things Done Lately, I'm a bit of a piker in that regard. Very dull.
Hm.
Well, today I, along with two of my apprentices, figured out how to make a talking animatronic bager drive a Duesenberg; only it won't REALLY be driving, because the road will be blocked off anyway, so someone can be manipulating the car while it appears that the badger is driving. And it only has to function for the amount of time it will take for the Spanish galleon to pass by anyway, so it's all good.
I'm a novelist/illustrator/scoundrel - I work at my own Studio, Coppervale, doing books, and art, and animatronic rodents. (The driving badger - his name is Tummeler, by the way - is for a surprise event at the end of my upcoming book tour.)
For some people that might not be different, but I'd never walked on somethinglike that before.