The co-CEO's of Team Kranz took a little mini anniversary trip to Pittsburgh. Our criteria for the trip was: close to home, somewhere that we could spend 24 hours and be both entertained and relaxed and somewhere that neither of us have ever visited. We originally were going to book a nice cabin in Hocking Hills, but the cabins were 2 night minimums. Honestly, I felt that that was too much time away from the kids at this stage in their lives. Mostly because of the twins- Corbin adapts very well to change, but I know for a fact that the twins ask a lot about their Daddy throughout the day until he comes home from work. So, I could only imagine that it would potentially bother them that their Mommy was missing.
Grandma Kathy came to take care of the boys, and they did great! They didn't even seem to notice our absence and they seemed happy to play with Grandma.
We left around lunchtime on Saturday. I had ran 20 miles that morning for the marathon training. I was a little sore, so I rested in the car on the way there. One of the only things on our "to do" list was to visit the original Primanti Bros restaurant. We split the steak and the pastrami. All sandwiches come with fries and coleslaw on the sandwich. They made them this way so that truck drivers who were passing through could eat on the go easily.
Yum!
And some random stranger offered to take our picture together.
We really had fun walking around the strip district. We found a cool little candy shop that had fun treats. We had to buy a little somethin' somethin'
Yummy assorted malt balls!
More sights from the strip
After taking a lengthy nap after lunch, going swimming in the hotel pool and chilling in the hottub with a street-view, we headed to Station Square and took the incline up to Mount Washington for our dinner reservation.
We didn't plan it, but we were right on Mount Washington for the sunset. Apparently, the sunset view of Pittsburgh from Mount Washington is the number 2 most beautiful sight in the United States (second to Sedona, AZ). We were quite taken with it.
We had dinner reservations at the Tin Angel on restaurant row. The incline dropped us off about a mile from the restaurant and we had a good 40 minutes to get there. Normally, walking a mile is a breeze, but I was wearing flats. Being a stay at home mom for the past 4 years, I am very used to my gym shoes and not accustomed to any sort of dress shoes. I started to get blisters on my heels and it was quite painful. Thankfully, the scenery was beautiful enough to distract me. The real estate overlooking the view was so cool. I should have taken some pictures, but I was trying to huff along, mostly. I did take a moment to take a picture of this gorgeous church along the way.
We made it to our restaurant, finally! Our table was in front of a large panoramic view of the city. It was a fabulous view. The dinner was really good- definitely no complaints about the quality of the food; however, it was an older menu that could have used a few updates. The courses looked something like this: soup, vegetable boat (enough to feed about 12 people. Seriously!), bread, entree, dessert (cheesecake or one of 4 variations of ice cream with liqueurs), piece of pineapple dipped in liqueur. We both got the ocean platter. Way too much food! I think that it would have had a more modern feel if either the portions were smaller OR it was a la carte. Oh, and we shared a few drinks to celebrate the awesome 5 years that we have had together.
We called a cab to pick us up from the restaurant. I was hoping to watch the fireworks over the stadium, but I was literally being wisked away in a cab, so I didn't have time to compose a proper picture.
We were dropped off in Station Square, where we went to a Bar Louie and had a couple of drinks.
The fountains are lit up so pretty at night
All of a sudden, the 20 miles started to catch up with me and I was starting to really get sleepy. So, we decided that we needed a change of scenery again. We decided to head back to the hotel and see what we could find.
We found a really cool bar called Eleven. They had an amazing drink menu. They are trying to get into house aged specialty drinks. Their first endeavor is the House Old Fashioned. It is aged in an oak barrel for 4 months and served over a single large cube of ice- no garnish. When you first drink it, it is very warm and tingly. After the four minute mark, it is super cold and the flavor panel has completely changed. It's super smooth.
The next morning, we caught a double decker tour bus by a stroke of luck and got to see the city, hosted by our British tourguide, James. We got to see the highlights of the city and hear amusing anecdotes.
We stopped on the Southside for 40 minutes. James had told us about Nadine's, which was featured on Diners Drive-Ins and Dives.
click here to see the segment. We HAD to stop in! It was Steelers gameday, so people were starting to filter in the place rather quickly. Lots of regulars coming in to take their seats. Nadine's daughter got our order, but it took her a long time to execute it, so she apologized and tried to give us our Yuenglings and fried bologna sandwich for free. We didn't feel right doing that, though, because we still enjoyed the experience.
One thing that Pittsburgh has a lot of is bridges!
One of the stops on the tour was the Andy Warhol Museum, which I was really looking forward to. It didn't disappoint! I loved the 6th floor with the film and video clips. It was so eerie to see all of the media coming at you at once, yet you could singularly focus in on just one segment at a time if you wanted to. My favorite was the David Bowie mime video that Andy took. It's this one, but without the music and with the actual dialogue. I imagine that it was copyrighted and that is why I can't find it out on youtube:
Bowie clip The whole place was under strict copyright, so I couldn't take any photos past the first floor.
Then we had to get back home, so we walked from the museum back to the hotel. We had to take the Andy Warhol bridge aong the way, which was pretty cool.
It was such a fun little getaway and we did so much in such a short period of time. We definitely want to go back now that we've seen what the city has to offer.
