Scuttlin along, peaceful and calm
Thursday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
A friend from the ‘old neighborhood’ who was visiting with us had headed home to NYC the night before, and ‘exercise day’ reared its head again. A humble narrator crawled up the hills here in Dormont, where HQ is found, and boarded the Light Rail service which is known as ‘The T.’ I was headed into Downtown Pittsburgh.
Unlike NYC, which is flat, in Pittsburgh you need to have some sort of plan for a walk lest you find yourself walking up incredibly steep hills and then back down the other side into a valley where you inevitably hit another steep hill which needs climbing. There’s exercise day, and then again, there’s a forced march. I don’t do forced marches unless I have to. Hence ‘a plan.’ It started with the T Light Rail, pictured above.
The so called ‘Golden Triangle’ Downtown area of Pittsburgh is a river delta, so – sort of flat. That means I can wander about without a plan and see what wants to be seen. Always a wandering mendicant, I.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I debarked the T at the Station Square stop on the southern shoreline of the Monongahela River and scuttled across the Smithfield Street Bridge.
One wasn’t carrying a full kit, rather I had outfitted myself for a ‘photowalk’ and had zero intentions of getting artsy or fartsy with filters or tripods. The point of the effort involved kicking my feet about and burning off some calories while getting the ticker to tick at an elevated but not too elevated rate for a set period of time.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
There is an absolutely surprising amount of port activity here in Pittsburgh. Lots of tugs. Supposedly, it’s possible to navigate to both the Great Lakes (Erie) and the Mississippi River from here. For reference, Pittsburgh is more or less 400 miles away and about 1,000 feet up from where you’ll notice the ocean.
Back tomorrow, as always.
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