"A Patriotic Weekend in Pittsburgh" Pittsburgh by riorich55

First of all let me say that being a tourist is not a bad thing. You can be like a local and go to local places, but you can also enjoy being a tourist. This was my first time to Pittsburgh as a tourist and my first trip back to Pittsburgh since the late 1980's. We came over the 4th of July weekend to attend my mother-in-law's side of the family reunion. Their family has been celebrating family reunions for 83 years now and even though we don't get to many of them anymore we decided to attend this one since our niece and nephew-in-law moved there 2 years ago to work and go to school.

Some Yummy Goodies

We left Chicago, Friday morning a little before 7:00 a.m. for a nice leisurely ride of not quite 500 miles across the states of Indiana, Ohio and a little bit of Illinois and Pennsylvania. Almost the entire trip was done on the Toll Road portions of the highways, but fortunately because of modern technology we were able to use our Illinois Tollway Authority I-Pass the entire trip so that the tolls were automatically deducted from our account and we didn't have the usual - stop here to pay yet another toll - stops along the way.

Sue and I shared the driving chores. I took the first and last 1/3 of the drive, while Sue took the middle 1/3 both ways. We were able to stop just across the Indiana/Ohio border in a little town for lunch and at one of Sue's favorite stops, a Christmas Store.

We arrived at about 6:15 p.m. Pittsburgh time (we lost an hour going), quickly dropped off our things at the hotel and continued onto the Lebanese dinner at a downtown Pittsburgh restaurant which was the Reunion event for the evening.

The next morning we headed for the Strip District and spent a good part of our day there, along with taking in some of the sites above the city. Saturday evening ended with a family picture and dinner/dance.

University of Pittsburgh Main Building

On Sunday the reunion concluded in the morning with a mass inside the hotel where most of the people stayed (we didn't as it was a Westin property and I like to get points with Marriott or Hilton's when I have to pay on my own). The mass was followed by a buffet breakfast and then we were on our way once again to explore.

It was another hot July day so I was glad that we had picked out the International Classrooms inside the building you see below. This and visiting the campus area in general took us up to dinner time which we spent with our immediate family. We ended our day having some wonderful Italian Ice.

July 4th found us leaving Pittsburgh at 11:00 a.m. again for a nice leisurely ride back home with yet another stop at that Christmas Store just in case Sue had missed anything. She didn't.

Check out the tips and reviews as I get them built during July and August, 2011.

• Pros:Scenic Neighborhoods and Friendly People
• Cons:Take the Wrong Turn and It May Take You Some Time to Get Back to Where You Want to Go
• In a nutshell:An Old Steel Making Town That has Diversified