The weather did not cooperate for our visit to Pittsburgh.

The weather can be your best friend or your sworn enemy. And I know that I have bemoaned this issue a number of times in previous blog posts, but the fact still remains that what we can do, where we visit, what attractions we see, are very much based on the weather. So, let’s just say that we visited a lot of indoor places on our 6-day stop in Charleroi, PA, which is a lovely suburb of Pittsburgh. Whatever outdoor walking or sightseeing we did, was carefully arranged and scheduled to be as dry as possible. We made the best of it, also knowing that we shall return one day, hopefully with sunnier weather, because Pittsburg is a magnificent city, and we were only able to scratch the surface. 

Charleroi, PA is a small community about 30-miles south of Pittsburgh and is a part of Washington County. So not wanting to challenge the rain or the traffic and drive all the way into the city, we found a couple of enjoyable adventures in and around Washington County. On a cloudy day early on in our visit, with no forecasted rain, we set out to find some paved walking trails. It had been a couple of days since we had really done any walking, so we were looking for a chance to really stretch our legs. We found Mingo Creek County Park. A large regional park filled with trails, birds and wildflowers, playgrounds, picnic shelters, and covered bridges. With all the rain, and the threat of more, we wanted to stay out of the mud, and the Mingo Park paved path was an easy 6-mile out and back path that parallels Mingo Creek. We walked far enough to go through both the Henry & the Ebeneezer covered bridges. Pretty neat. The best thing is that we didn’t get rained on, mostly because we brought the umbrellas (had we forgotten them, it would have rained). 

On another rather dreary afternoon, we went to the city of Washington to do some indoor exploring and stay out of the rain. We started our foray into early American history in western Pennsylvania at the Bradford House. David Bradford was a prominent lawyer, and Deputy Attorney General for the county. Mr. Bradford became quite wealthy and constructed a house on South Main which reflected his high social standing, not only by its size, but also by its fittings. The house has a magnificent mahogany staircase, and interior finishes that show remarkable craftsmanship. David Bradford was also one of the foremost leaders of the Whiskey Rebellion and used his stature and legal standing to oppose the repressive tax on whiskey. I had no idea whiskey almost brought down the federal government. Sure, whiskey’s kind of popular now, but not so much as to become a reason for a violent uprising. The Whiskey Rebellion (aka the “Whiskey Insurrection”) was a violent tax protest in the United States beginning in 1791 and ending in 1794 during the presidency of George Washington. The so-called "whiskey tax" was the first tax imposed on a domestic product by the newly formed federal government.  I think it’s kind of ironic that President George Washington literally had to bring troops to Washinton County, named after the President, himself, to put an end to the Whiskey Rebellion in 1794.

Weather be damned; eventually you gotta consider sight-seeing in the rain. So, off we went into Pittsburg proper. One of the best ways to see a city is to proceed to the tallest point in the city and have a look around. In many cities this means taking an elevator ride to the top of a skyscraper. This is not the case in Pittsburg. In this city, in order for us to get a birds-eye-view of the surroundings, we decided to ride the Duquesne Incline up to Duquesne Heights. So basically, we took an outside elevator 400-feet up the side of a cliff, until we were perched high above the city. From here we got a fantastic view of the city, the numerous connecting bridges and surrounding neighborhoods. Some of the more prominent and memorable sights from our vantage point were the PPG Industries Glass skyscraper, the Fred Rogers Memorial, the location of PNC Park (baseball), and Three River Stadium (football). I’m no real stadium expert, but from our vantage point eating on the back deck of a wonderful

restaurant, I absolutely understand why the football stadium was named “Three-River Stadium”.  Anyone can plainly see the stadium is situated on the shoreline of the three converging rivers, Ohio, Allegheny & Monongahela. Ohh, what’s that, it’s not called Three River Stadium anymore. What? I am being told of a name change to “Acrisure Stadium”.  My mistake, it seemed too obvious to me but what do I know?

For those days, and I do mean days, when the rain just would not stop, we turned our adventures to indoor museums such the Senator John Heinz History Center. This is a great museum by any standards. Set in a former ice warehouse in the “Strip District” of downtown, there are five floors, totaling 275,000 sq feet of exhibit space.  There is something in this museum for everyone. We’ve been to a lot of big museums, and this one is pretty darn big, so it was great to find out that our entrance fee was good for visiting the museum on two consecutive days. So that’s what we did. We saw galleries that included the history of the H.J. Heinz Co, the Western Pennsylvania Sports Museum (Steelers, Pirates, Arnold Palmer), and an exhibit that traced the Lewis and Clark expedition. I think one of the exhibits Judy and I enjoyed the most was Mr. Rogers Studio. Fred Rogers is a Pittsburgh native, and the show was filmed at a PBS affiliated station.  The museum did a wonderful job of preserving Fred Rogers’s soft-spoken nature, whilst displaying many artifacts from the original set.  Memorable artifacts like his sneakers, sweater and many of the handmade puppets were on display.   I think, all told, between the two days, we must have spent 8+ hours in the museum, and still missed entire exhibits.

Pittsburg was the second to last stop on this 6,000-mile, four-month journey, and the soggiest. True to form, on the morning of the day we were to pack up and travel, it was raining. Everything got stowed away wet, in the hopes that it would be drier at our next stop. That stop is 260-miles due east of Pittsburgh, a place we have stayed before called Manheim, PA in Lancaster County.  (See blog post: We conclude our southern expedition with a stop to explore chocolate & ice cream, dated May 18, 2024.) My brother & family live nearby, and this location is a reasonable drive to home in Massachusetts. Funny, as I review my old blog post, seems the weather was none too cooperative during my previous stay either.   Ohh well, it will be what it will be, as we tell… the Rest of the Story.

Hello, are we still on? Test, Test. Hey there, welcome back. It has been a while.

Hello, yes, I know it has been a while since I last posted. I was doing pretty well there for a while and was just about 2 blog posts away from completing the story of our 4-month adventure to & from the Northern Rockies. My goal was to complete the last couple of posts before my scheduled knee replacement surgery. Yes, that is correct, I badly needed a new knee. As many have been fond of pointing out, there are usually two things you see in the pictures on this blog: Steven wearing some type of “Kamco” emblazoned shirt, and Judy wearing a backpack. And in many of those pictures, Steven is also wearing a rather substantial black knee brace. Anyway, it’s been a problem from our very first trip, and I still walked and hiked hundreds of miles in the past year. I made the appointment for my knee replacement 6 months ago, before we headed west, with the understanding that upon our return home, we would be roosting in Massachusetts, until the summer.

So just about six weeks ago, I went in for knee replacement surgery, and as anyone who has ever had orthopedic surgery knows, it is a slow and painful recovery. Quite frankly, it was difficult to write. The fact that you are now reading a new blog post should indicate that I have made a full recovery from the surgery, my knee has healed up nicely, and I’m walking a mile most days, slowly working up my endurance. And I feel revitalized enough to write a blog. 

Ohh, and “Neil the Northpoint” (5^th wheel) is also in for service. We put a lot of miles on Neil during this last trip. Bumping and thumping across the America highways really takes a toll on the trailer, the vehicle literally shakes itself apart. Glass cracks, moldings separate, and after a while some of the smaller interior LED lights start malfunctioning. I do not blog about the repair work that needs to be done on all of these trips, from calking the bathroom shower, to replacing cabinet hinges and drawer slides. Super glue, duct tape, zip-ties, and bungee-cords are an RV’ers first line of repair whilst on the road.  All told, “Neil” the Northpoint has been winterized and, much like me, is in for service.

In the meantime, we have some very exciting plans for next year which will start in June of 2025. We are planning to retrace a trip we made in 2017, when Judy and I were just investigating the RV lifestyle. We spent about 10 days of a summer vacation traveling up through New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, and Prince Edward Island, Canada.  We had such an amazing time on this trip, we thought we would do it again, this time with plenty of time to really explore and soak up the local flavors.  We’re also starting to plan a much larger trip which will see us visiting Texas, Arizona and New Mexico in the winter of 2025-2026. (About a year from now).  All I can say is WOW!

However, our plans for the immediate future, like the next 6 months, are to remain stationary.  That being said, I’m full on committed to the completion of the last 2 blog posts which will highlight our stops in Pennsylvania, before returning to Massachusetts.  So, check back to read what we found in Pittsburgh, and Lancaster, as we tell… the Rest of the Story.