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Off to Pittsburgh

Time for another one of my vacations so I decided to go see my aunt and cousin in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. I last saw them 6 years ago while I was touring all over the country and I miss them. I decided to fly out and hire a sub to stay in my trailer and guard my gate for me. Eek! Flying again. After many, many years of avoiding flying and TSA crap, here I am suddenly flying twice in one year, soon to be three times. Sheesh.

Getting through TSA wasn’t too bad and I really like this e-ticket stuff. Being able to check in online is pretty cool as is getting notices via text messages to my smart phone or the airline app. I bought a regulation size carryon bag during my last trip and just brought that for this trip to give the baggage handlers no chance to lose my luggage in between plane changes. The flight did not go well. The first plane was delayed due to mechanical problems. It became obvious that I was going to miss my connecting flight so I had to get the clerks to book another flight for me out of Atlanta. That would get me into Pittsburgh very late. Once we got on the plane, I found myself with a small child sitting right next to me and one behind me. Egad! The one next to me was actually fine except for not putting up the tray when told. The one behind me was awful. He used his loud voice to babble all through the flight and constantly kicked my seat. His parents did nothing to control him. By the time we got to Atlanta, I was ready to kill. A discrepancy came up with my seat assignment on the next plane so I told the clerk what had happened and asked him to get me a seat away from any kids. He was very nice about it and got me a wonderful seat with no one in the seat beside me and only adults around me.

My cousin picked me up at the airport and took me to my aunt’s apartment in an adult assisted living center. It was great to get to stay there for a week and see what those places are like. I must say I am now looking forward to retiring to one someday. They have lots of activities, nice apartments, beautiful grounds, their own medical center, a movie theater, billiards, exercise room, a library, crafts room, beauty salon, a bus into town, a casual cafĂ©, and a main dining room with excellent food and service. They even brought us a roll-away bed for me to sleep on.

I got to meet my cousin’s new husband when we had dinner at their house. He’s a very nice guy who makes her happy. My cousin cooked the most delicious lasagna using ground turkey instead of ground beef. They tried to get me hooked on some TV show my aunt and her daughters were passing around on DVDs. We watched a couple episodes while there. I gave my cousin the leftover treats I still had left after my cat died. I had just opened those when I lost my kitty. My cousin’s cat went nuts over them! He kept looking around for more and suckered her out of a couple more. Ha ha! He and I played a little “touch the foot and I’ll try to paw you”.

The next day, we went to a picnic at the park for Memorial Day with my aunt’s singles group. They were very nice to me and I think some remembered me from the last visit. The food was great and I joined in a rabid game of Uno that just would not end. I finally quit and someone won right after that. Heh. I met another RVer there so I had someone to chat with for a while and I planted a Munzee nearby.

AUP Singles picnicPicnic in the parkAunt Marge

Park duck pond

We went to the racetrack one day. I have never been to a racetrack so cross another one off my bucket list. I enjoyed watching the harness racing but the betting not so much. I’m not a gambler. It gives me about as much joy as flushing money down the toilet. I bet on a few of the races but not all. No matter what the horse and rider stats, it still seemed to be pretty much a crap shoot as to who would win or place. I did win a couple. I had more fun taking pictures and eating the stuffed mushrooms.

Harness racing warmupThey're off!Coming to the finish!

Another day we went on the living center bus to see a play downtown. I don’t remember the name but it had only two actors constantly talking us through the scene and the first thing they did was drop on stage and start humping. LOL! That’s the second time my aunt has taken me to a sex play. It wasn’t all sex but boy, what an opening! I enjoyed the play well enough though it went on a bit too long. On the way home on the bus, we heard the Pittsburgh Pirates had won their baseball game so everyone was happy.

Pittsburgh

The last time I visited, I introduced my aunt and cousin to geocaching. After six years away, they were ready to do some more. We spent an afternoon doing some easy parking lot geocaches. We scored six geocaches and one Munzee. I also planted a couple Munzees. At one of the geocaches, we found a dead turkey and poison ivy. My aunt who is a former biology teacher talked us around the ivy.

Since I’m currently tracing my family ancestry, my aunt gave me copies of the work already done on it by my grandfather. She then whipped out a stack of letters from my grandfather to my grandmother from 1925-1926 when they were dating and secretly planning to marry. We took turns reading them to each other over dinner. Wow! You could hear the young persons we never knew in those letters. They were very different from the older settled people we knew. Grandpa complained about the job sometimes (unusual for Grandpa) and talked about buying his new car ( a Whippet). As a traveling civil engineer, he boarded at homes when he couldn’t find a rooming house and liked landladies that baked bread and pies. That explains why Grandma always had fresh pie when we visited! Grandpa professed his love constantly for the “sweetest girl in the world” and they planned their life together after the wedding. We spent a wonderful evening with those letters and learned a lot about two people we thought we knew. My personal favorite was about how bummed he was after he bought the new car that he could only drive it at 25mph for the first 500 miles until it was broken in. Oh my gosh! Poor guy. It’s a shame that future generations will never have such an enjoyable evening due to the advent of email.

Alas, as all vacations must, my week in Pittsburgh came to an end. I flew back to San Antonio with no problems after scoring some Pittsburgh T-shirts for me and my brother at the airport. The Pittsburgh airport runs like a Swiss watch. When we taxied out to the runway, we were in a long line of planes taking off one after the other after the other with planes starting their runs even as the plane in front of them was lifting off. My plane was also one of the newer ones with TV screens on the back of the seats. I got to watch a free movie and play a game. Would love to get on one of those again!

Planes lined up on runway

I picked up my truck which was thankfully not flooded in. The air conditioning had quit on the way in and was still not working. I stopped for dinner and groceries then went back to guarding my gate 24/7 in my RV until the next vacation in August.

For more pics click here.

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