The honeymoon

I realized that I forgot to talk about our honeymoon in my last posting. Sometime this spring, we had decided to take a vacation that got us away from the house and as much else as possible. Amanda didn't or wouldn't give me any ideals as to what she would have liked to do, so I checked the reds schedule and thought a vacation in pittsburgh when the reds were playing the pirates would be a good vacation. I wasn't sure that such a destination was what she had in mind, but she agreed and we settled on that. After the proposal (good idea for another post) we blended the vacation into a honeymoon, more at my urging than hers. That was one of the reasons the engagment was such a short period, her time away from work and my leisurely mid to late july's worked out just right for 7-17-11.

We arranged for my youngest sister to come in and lord over the cats a couple of times, walterdog went to my parents for the week, and the rest of the dogs were sent to her parents for some of their own vacation. Monday morning we loaded up and took off. I thought she would like to go to bob evans down in Rio Grande and see some of the sights there, so after we unloaded at her parenst, us and the gift card headed down 35 and took in the sights. I had never realized that bob evans meats had such a prescence in homes as it did, the restauranteering never took off until the 70's after a unreliable pig market.

After the delicous dine and tour, we made our way to Pittsburgh, arriving just in time for a storm front to move in and delay the start of the game. We hadn't figured out the driving in Pittsburgh and were relying on taxis and hotel shuttles to move us around. This got us to the game just as the first rain delay was over, and in time for the first inning to start and then get delayed again for rain. Luckily we had ordered seats way in the back, under the overhang, so we stayed dry the whole time. Unfortunately, before the 7th inning stretch, it was after 11 and we were both bed ready. Tuesday we slept in, hung out at the hotel pool and caught the second reds loss of our trip. Wednesday I gambled and decided that driving and parking would be an okay thing. Parking and breakfast went good, we had an excellent breakfast at a place called pamelas. Then we attempted to get parked for the game and that was a nightmare. My gps doesn't know which bridges are closed, I wanted to get close to the stadium, and I can't pay enough attention in bumper to bumper traffic. Finally we made it to the stadium, saw the reds win, and got back to the hotel and ordered in pizza. Thursday we had to ourselves to do more touristy things. The bird sanctuary we saw was really cool, but a bit smaller than I had imagined. It might have been better if we were able to see the shows that had been cancelled for the day. We then went to a jerome bettis sponsored/themed restaurant, Amanda had the best meal she has had in a long while, some type of flat bread with marghereta toppings. Afterwards we did some shopping, and then seen what was probably the second best part of the trip, a distant second to being newlyweds, the andy warhol museum. Admittedly, I was more interested in the history of the person than the art, and I was glad we took the time and did a 2 and a half hour walking tour. We stopped at the store on the way out and picked out what the clerk thought were the best two books. This escalated into an evening at a very fine dining seafood place, a scary ride on an incline, and then going back to the hotel.

I had considered taking a detour to canton for the football hall of fame, but when the time came I was more interested in getting home. The trip home went fine, all the critters were glad to be back in our company and we had the majority of the weekend to continue on a lay around lazy time. It was great.

times typed "oftern"-0