One Advil Later -

Yesterday, my sis-in-law, her daughter and I walked through downtown Pittsburgh, took the T under the river, spent a little time at the Rivers Casino and walked past all 3 stadiums. Things have really changed in Pittsburgh. I only recognized a few things, the old Kaufman's clock where we would always meet people, and this Lutheran church that is in between some big office buildings in town.



The skyline is really beautiful but was too large to get a good picture. This is from the North Shore area.




Here is the Gateway Clipper with the incline to Mt Washington in the background. People over 65 can ride the incline for free just by showing their Medicare card. In the downtown area, anyone can ride the T for free so we did take advantage of that.




After miles of walking, including many steps, we decided to stop to eat. My niece Kelly found a great place. It is called Rivertowne Brewery. They had many menu items that were new to me. We each decided to get different kinds of pizza and share it. Marcia go Pierogi Pizza, Kelly got some kind of Chicken Wing Pizza and I got the most tame, Ohio a River Pizza. I may have the names a little off, but it is close. I almost tried the Rueben Pizza but we already were having sauerkraut on Marcia's pizza so that was experimental enough. The Pierogi Pizza was better than I expected. I would go back.




Then we walked past the Pirates stadium and people were already arriving for the game. I wanted my picture taken with the Roberto Clemente statue - he was my hero growing up. You will notice we have no dogs with us. That was a nice break.




We drove home and the first thing I did was take an Advil. I don't think my legs and knees have had such a workout since I was in Italy. We were going to go out last night but we all agreed that we needed a rest. Instead we got ice cream from Dairy Queen and watched the Pirates win.

This morning Marcia had to go to work so my brother and I bonded for awhile. The dogs kinda bonded. I heard that my niece Colleen came over yesterday while we were out and she opened the bathroom door and Zooey ran out. Zooey was afraid of Izzy so Colleen ran all around the house trying to catch her while Zooey ran away from Izzy. My brother thought it was pretty funny. I wish we had a video of it! This is the best picture I could get of all of the dogs here.



I am heading back to my friend's house for the night but will visit her at a flea market where she has a booth, later this morning. Luckily it is cool enough here to leave the dogs in the van. I think it is in the 50's and is only going up to the 60's today. I love this cool weather!

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Pittsburgh with my Brother's Family

When I got up this morning, Mike made me coffee and ML left me the most delicious muffin I have had in ages. It was pumpkin and had a cream filling. Yum!
Then I packed all of my various plastic bags back into the van. The van looks pretty bad because I took much of my so called " valuables " out of the camper when it was towed so now the bags are all piled on my bed waiting to be stored. They will probably be waiting until I am ready to sleep in my camper again!

Anyway I got to the relatives and was excited to see everyone. My niece had two little boys I had never seen. I visited with my sister-in-law, my brother and their children. It was great catching up on what had been happening. I hadn't seen them in over 2 years.

In the early evening we headed to my favorite pizza place, Beto's Pizza. It has been around since I was a kid and is now being run by the grandchildren of the original owners. I doubt if you have seen or tasted anything like it.



Only tourists ask for the cheese to be melted.

I also had a chance cuddle my brother's youngest grandson. So cute!



When we came home, my brother turned on the Steeler's game and we periodically switched to the Pirates game. Because we can do more than one thing at a time, my niece, my sis-in-law and I also played Candy Crush.

They have a dog named Izzy and after a rough start with alpha Seymour, they got along fine. Zooey spent her time trying to hide. My dogs are now both in their crate in the guest room with me and we are all planning an early bed time. Tomorrow is casino day!

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Update on Camper Van

I got my camper back - this was written on the bill from auto repair "blower mower resistor had aluminum foil caught in it creating a short. Ferraro Chocolate". Now let me just say I have never eaten Ferraro chocolate in my camper. I think it had been causing my A/C blower problems for a long time. So, I am lucky the fire started in front of my friend's house in Pittsburgh instead of along the highway. The camper still smells pretty badly. The repair people said they are still laughing.



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Location:Pittsburgh, PA

What Camper?

Today started out fine. Mike made me coffee and I enjoyed a piece of pound cake for breakfast. I made plans to visit my friend Sam for lunch. I packed up the camper, set my GPS to the right address and took off - a few feet. I smelled smoke, like someone was burning wood. Then I saw smoke pouring out of my car vents. I tried to grab the dogs but they kept running away from me to the other side of the van. Finally I grabbed them and we hurried back into Mike and Lou's house. I think Mike was getting ready to enjoy some time alone, but alas it was not to be. I looked up the names of auto repair places so I could tell AAA where to tow it. At least 7 places turned me down. Finally, Tony's Auto a Repair said they would look at it.

AAA came and Bill, the tow truck driver said he knew Tony so I feel more comfortable leaving it there.

Bye Meryl ( my camper). Hope you get well real soon!




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Cool Tour Today

We took our time leaving the campground this morning because the friend I was going to stay with tonight had to work today. I decided to drive through downtown Weston, WV because it said it was a historic town.

I saw a sign for a tour of the Trans-Allegheny Lunatic Asylum. It sounded interesting so I went to find the tour. When we found it, I saw 3 people sitting by the fountain who looked like they might be going to play the part of inmates and a young man standing outside the door. He said he was a tour guide and said it was fine for me to carry the dogs on the tour. I signed up for the 45 minute tour for only $10. There was also an hour and a half tour for $30. When we went in, I asked the lady who had been sitting by the fountain if she would take a picture of me and the dogs. She did but I found that her group was actually taking the tour with me.



The tour guide, Michael was excellent. I think he went above and beyond when describing and showing us the buildings. He did look the part!



The building is 25 ft shy of a quarter mile long. It is very impressive looking.




There is one room where they say they have detected paranormal activity from a little girl name Lilly. He said that if you look on uTube, you can learn more about her. I plan to do that. This is her room.




There was so much more I learned about this place but it would take a few pages to write it all. After the tour, you could go to the museum rooms and see patient notes, tortures that thought helped patients, and a list of reason for being committed. Some of the reasons were ridiculous - things like "being depressed",
"being kicked by a horse", "trouble", "sunstroke" and "jealousy". They made me sad to think about how many people were confined for no good reason.




I recommend this tour to my Pittsburgh friends. It is only about 2 hours away and you won't be disappointed.

Then we headed onward. We stopped at a rest area and I always think my vehicle is bigger than it is. When the signs say trucks and RV's go to one parking lot and cars to another, I always go to the truck lot. Today it was obvious I was probably in the wrong lot.




I'm still laughing about it.

We got into Pittsburgh by 4 pm, just before my friend got home. We are now talking and relaxing and enjoying our time together, well except for a Seymour-cat run in. I am guessing that Seymour will be staying away from the cat during the rest of our stay.

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Almost to Pittsburgh

We left at about 10 a took our time driving and site seeing - and shopping. We all seemed to need more than the usual potty stops which I thought was working out fine since I didn't plan to drive more than 250 miles today. I drove like an old lady today ( no comments). I drove as slow as I could going down the mountains and I think that I could have been passed by someone on a bike. I didn't care but it did make the trip longer.

We stopped at a rest area in Virginia and I noticed a woman standing at the pet rest area. She was still standing I the same spot when I came out of the restroom. I went to get the dogs and let them walk there and noticed that there was no where to walk. The are was about 4ft x 8 ft and although it doesn't look like it, but there is a steep embankment just behind the sign. This was one of the worst pet areas I have seen at rest stops.



We then stopped at my favorite Welcome Center - West Virginia. I didn't take a picture this time but there is one in one of my older blogs. It is worth looking up.

Finally I decided that it was time to find a campground. I turned off of 2 different exits that said there were campgrounds, but I didn't find any. My GPS finally told me that there was only one campground 14 miles ahead. I decided to trust it even though it is often wrong.

On the way I passed a beautiful scenic overlook and decided to stop to take a picture.



While I was there I asked a young man if he wanted me to take his picture. He said no, he was taking a picture of his truck at the overlook. But he asked if I wanted him to take a picture of me. This one's for you, Joan!




Back to the campground search. The GPS was actually right. It is called the Broken Wheel Campground. It is funky and quaint. It has a little country store In front.




It looks like it is inhabited by permanent campers mostly. They also will store your RV and then in a separate area, they have short term campers. She gave me a choice of about 20 camp sites to choose from, so it basically wasn't crowded. My only little complaints are that the bathroom is probably too far away to take advantage of, and the water comes out brown. I was going to wash my new coffee pot but decided that I would rather taste the chemicals. This is the towel I was going to wash it with. It was white before I ran it under the faucet.



Otherwise, the camp site is really pretty. There is even a small stream beside us.



I am sitting on the porch of the country store to use their wifi and when I looked up, 2 rabbits were running across the parking lot.



I would stay here again. I like funky and quaint.

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Location:Weston, WV

Starting the Day with a Little Whine

I loved Fort Yargo State Park. It is such a beautiful setting that they said they hold weddings there. The lake is amazing. Our campsite was private and surrounded by large pines and other vegetation. I could easily have stayed there another night. Cost was $35 including park entrance fee.






You can rent a yurt on the lake for $70 a night. I didn't get to see them but it is on my bucket list to do sometime. Now the whine starts. This morning when I was heating up water for my coffee, my microwave died! Not before coffee! Then I noticed that 2 of my tires were low. I went to two different gas stations to use their air pump and I couldn't get the tires aired up. Now I am thinking that I was supposed to press in the handle to get the air to work. I will google that. Maybe it was lucky that my tires were low because a truck threw pieces of tire all over the road in front of me and I had no choice but to hit some. So far, my tires still look low, but okay.

We drove through the Blue Ridge Mountains and the scenery actually made me gasp a few times. So beautiful! This picture doesn't do it justice but it's all I could take.



My GPS took me to the underbelly of Asheville. Not the best first view of this town. I finally had to ask two people how to get to the center of town. It was easy to see why they say old hippies retire there - or open shops! The town was so crowded that there wasn't a parking spot to be found. I did see a couple small busses that took people around town but I didn't take the time to find out where you boarded them. It's a shame that this cool town has been discovered in a big way. Here are a few pictures I took while driving, but it was just outside of the downtown area.










It was starting to get late, so I decided to drive further to find a place to stay. We continued to go up and down the mountains. Going up wasn't bad but going down was a little scary because I could feel my brakes pumping or bumping. I saw a sign for a State Park but the problem is, it doesn't say how far off the highway it is. The park yesterday was 11 miles off the highway. So, we drove on. Toward the bottom of one mountain we saw a sign for Johnson City. It is a relatively big place with a Target, JCP, Sears and many of the other big box stores - oh, and it had a Motel 6, which accepts pets for no extra charge. Yep, we are camping in a motel again, using free wifi, watching TV, the dogs are sleeping in their crate and I am writing my blog. I am getting ready to take a long shower.

BTW, I have already been to Target to buy a small coffee maker and some coffee.

We are about 420 miles from Pittsburgh so I expect to be there on Tuesday.



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Location:Johnson City, Tenn