Pittsburgh and Brownsville, PA

We were all up early on Sunday and were soon driving into Pittsburgh and meandering around the town and across the bridges until we stopped at a tea/coffee shop where I had a delicious cup of Assam tea. Then I realized that I had left my camera battery and charger at the hotel. What a tragedy. I couldn't expect everyone to lose a chunk of the day by returning to the hotel so I had to call Marriott and ask them to mail it to Meadow House. So from now on I was solely reliant on the iPhone. Everyone was so sweet and sympathetic about my handicap and it took me a while to accept I had no Canon to record some very important stuff. But I had to just accept it and move on so all photos on this post are from my iPhone. and they're not too shabby. I used my fisheye lens and an app on my phone that stitches photos together to create panoramas.

 These are of Pittsburgh as we drove and walked around. Richard knew of an area known as Mexican War Streets stating that there were some pretty far out houses there so we were eager to check it out. We parked up and rambled through the streets.

These houses were amazing and must surely be endless works of art. The house with Chinese letters is known as the House of Poems and is the house that started the art event. The day was getting overcast and we felt a few drops of rain so it was agreed that it was time for lunch. From there it was our final stop of the weekend, a town called Brownsville, that we had read about here on a blog.  This is an interesting link.
It was largely abandoned and once we had parked it seemed like we were walking into a ghost town.

We found a door open to an abandoned bank and scurried inside. There was this wonderful old ice cream parlor equipment which was being stored here and my heart sank as I realized that I needed my Canon and a tripod to do this scene justice but the iPhone worked OK and I have to admit that the graininess of the shots made a superb grunge effect.

As we walked  through the darkness we came across the safe and safety boxes.

Another photo for my antique wallpaper collection.

The liquor store was the only place open here today. There were a couple of other stores in business but their doors were closed today.

It's a shame so many of these old and beautiful buildings are caught up in litigation, (as mentioned in the link above). I hope they are one day restored as intended.

I saw this poster and decided to check out the website, heartened by the thought of new beginnings for Brownsville. The site has gone....
We drove back south towards home stopping briefly for dinner and then parting as we went our separate ways. What a fabulous weekend with only 2 injuries, a scratched knee from climbing a fence and a very sore throat from laughing so much. Yay!