Thursday, September 24, 2009

Da Burgh

In case you didn’t get my comment yesterday about the remainder of this week in Pittsburgh being brought to you by the Letter G and Number 20, it’s because the G20 summit is in Pittsburgh today and tomorrow.

Although this seems very odd. Air Force One isn’t expected to land until 3:30 pm today (Thursday) and everything is supposed to be “back to normal” by tomorrow (Friday) evening. How long is this summit? 15 minutes? Sheesh.

Anyhoo, I grew up in Pittsburgh as well as living here now. I firmly believe that when they handed out civic pride, Pittsburghers got in line twice. We are very proud of our city, with good reason. Since I’m a bit concerned that most of the images out-of-towners will see from my city will be of the protesters and other ugliness, I wanted to show you a tiny bit of happy from this city that I love.

Last weekend, the Hubster and I were able to show off Da Burgh to his parents, who were visiting from Chicago. Hubster had been dying to do a Just Ducky tour, so we did!

The tour starts at Station Square, then crosses the Smithfield Street Bridge. As we started the tour, we got a nice view of the Monongahela Incline

Incline.jpg

I do want to mention that I wasn’t thinking ahead when I “packed” for the day, since my good camera doesn’t take great Roaming Tigger photos. Oh well.

After driving through town for a bit, we crossed the Warhol/7th Street Bridge onto the North Side, then splashed down into the Allegheny River near Heinz Field

RTheinz09.jpg

Tigger doesn’t swim all that well, but he’s happy to take boat or Hippo Tours.

We also floated past the Carnegie Science Center

RTscience.jpg

I tried to lighten up RT in Photoshop, but all of my efforts just made it look like I had cut/pasted him into the photo. So you get a dark Tigger.

I did get one nice shot of Tigger and Dahntahn

RTpgh.jpg

Don’t be surprised to see this shot on a Ravatar near you…

After the Ducky Tour, we headed over to PNC Park to witness one of the Pirates three wins in their last 25 games (YUCK-O). We did a bunch of tourist-ey stuff in the Strip District then visited the Heinz History Center, but no fun photos from that field trip.

RTpnc09.jpg

So once all these idiot protesters leave town, come and visit! We have two spare bedrooms! Plenty of space! And here’s hoping that none of the protesters break anything while they’re here.

8 comments:

Trillian42 said...

You make me miss my hometown!!!

Jenn said...

Tom's parents enjoy visiting us, we keep trying to take them on a duck tour but every time they come down, it's March and November and the tour company is closed. I bet it was fun!

Bezzie said...

Yeah every place deals with it's stereotypes--said the girl who grew up in an igloo mushing dogs to school and now lives on a landfill nextdoor to the mob. ;-)

Bezzie said...

Ha ha! That should be ITS stereotypes!

turtlegirl76 said...

That last shot is the best! That should be your ravatar!

LaurieG said...

Hush! I'm hoping a spontaneous riot breaks out on my street and they burn the couches (!) that my husband won't remove from my front porch. And maybe some of the yard debris I can't get the kids to sweep/bag up.

Sarah said...

Did you see the news from overnight? Looks like some idiots decided it would be a good idea to smash a bunch of windows along Forbes in Oakland. Strangely, it didn't look all that different to me from what happened after we won the Super Bowl.

I, for one, will be very happy when today is over and we get out city back!

Jen said...

I love the Just Ducky tours! It always brightened my day just a little to have a vehicle full of people quacking at me when I was sitting outside during my lunchbreak. It's one of the best ways to see our fine city. :)