The Newtown Pentacle

Thursday

– photo by Mitch Waxman

As mentioned yesterday, a misty day in Pittsburgh saw rising clouds of fog beginning to congeal into rain up in the vault, and your humble narrator negotiated an alteration to his walking path which would offer some cover should the sky ‘open up.’ Saying that, I’m fairly waterproofed.

Today’s title? Glad you asked.

I was wearing the filthy black raincoat, with the camera secreted beneath it. The camera bag on my back is fairly water repellent, and if things went sour there’s an umbrella attached to it. The biggest weather related issue I actually had involved my glasses steaming up whenever the camera got pushed against the repellent sensory stalk I call a face.

– photo by Mitch Waxman

The bridge people were testing out a lighting kit, recently installed on the Three Sisters Bridges, and several water facing buildings were also lit up. Pittsburgh does an event called ‘Light Up Night’ wherein the municipal Christmas Tree is lit up, which was meant to happen a day or two later than this walk. There’s fireworks too. Tradition.

I didn’t go, Light Up Night is a real crowd scene – not unlike New Year’s Eve in Time Square – and I really, really don’t like crowds these days.

– photo by Mitch Waxman

The fountain at Point State Park has been subject a rebuild/maintenance project for a while now, and it was a surprise to see it on.

The NFL Draft is coming to Pittsburgh next year, and a bunch of tax money is being spent to accomodate the event and give Pittsburgh a ‘glow up’ while the whole country is paying attention to it.

– photo by Mitch Waxman

One continued down the Monongahela River shoreline trail, and luckily for me, just as I stepped under the ramps leading to Fort Pitt Bridge the sky opened up and the precipitation turned from a mist into a proper bout of rain.

The path I was on followed along under a series of highway and bridge on and off ramps, so there was cover to be found in the rain shadows. Didn’t need to deploy the umbrella, at least at this interval.

It’s nice, as an aside, to not have to worry overly about atmospheric conditions again. The busted ankle is stable enough now for normal and all-weather duty, which it hasn’t been all year. That’s part of the reason that for the last six months or so all of the photos presented here were captured on fairly nice days with lots of sun and a distinct lack of ‘weather.’ Going out shooting at night is in the cards again as well.

– photo by Mitch Waxman

An abundance of light wasn’t an issue on this section of the scuttle. This shot was from about 4-5 in the afternoon.

The rain began to intensify, and it wasn’t long before I opened the umbrella and hid beneath it. My mind was already focused on getting to the First Avenue T light rail station, as this was plainly not going to be one of those happy evenings where I drink beers while waiting for CSX trains to pass me by, at the Sly Fox Brewery found on the opposing shore.

– photo by Mitch Waxman

There was still an interval of scuttling ahead of me, though, so it was leaned into. This ‘corridor’ used to host some rather large encampments established by the ‘unhoused,’ but a recent Mayoral plebiscite saw an unpopular incumbent trying to buoy up the opinions of the electorate in an attempt to win a second term.

He booted the street people and their belongings away and out of public view, using the usual methodology of ‘outreach, policing, and sanitation dept.’ but that incumbent lost the election anyway.

Back tomorrow with more.

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