Pittsburgh, as a Tourist

Once in a while, it is nice to play hooky (after filing all of the proper paperwork for the day off with your employer) and be a tourist. Hitting the state parks and hiking around home in West Virginia never feels very touristy because, while we often encounter folks from faraway places, the tourists we run into are usually pretty into their own experience and blend in very well. Alternatively, many have local tour guides, enabling them to cut through the noise to get to the best of what the area has to offer. But when you commit to visiting Pittsburgh and playing tourist the experience is different, these are actual tourists with no local hosts and they aren’t all the quiet, introspective outdoorsy types.

I’m not sure at which point we switched from, “oh, we live in the Pittsburgh exurbs” to “let’s be tourists.” We often do enjoy the drive up to Washington, PA on old U.S. Route 19. Good grief, do I ever love eating at the Waffle House on Racetrack Road in Washington. I think the exact moment was when Chris took a wrong turn onto the Smithfield Street Bridge while seeking a specific entrance to Station Square and it had been so long since I’d been downtown that I didn’t realize they’d modified the traffic pattern somewhat that I was about as useful as a tourist (even though I resided in the City of Pittsburgh for several years!). First rule of driving in Pittsburgh: there are no rules.

For a long time we had been wanting to try out a Duck Tour, these are the tours of cities on the amphibious vehicles, so there is an in-water and out-of-water component of the tour. The tour was a really good time. The tour only covered the downtown core and the stadiums on the North Shore but our guide was great and was certainly able to entertain us sufficiently in the time provided, which seemed to be a little over an hour. The only part of the tour that wasn’t quite as I expected was the water component, I figured it might be used to cross the Allegheny instead of using one of the bridges, but instead the water component is just fooling around in the Ohio, between the Point and the West End Bridge. Not any real tour points there, just the unique factor of being in the water. We would both recommend the tour though, it was informative and fun!

Another big attraction about Pittsburgh for us yokels to the far south are the malls! When I lived in Pittsburgh, I loved South Hills Village and now I also have a pretty healthy relationship with Ross Park Mall. It was great to be able to hold the new iPhones and pick out the ones we want (even if we still have to order them!) at the Apple Store. We also are madly in love with the L.L. Bean Store. Perusing the L.L. Bean basically reassures me that even when we do decide to go for some crazy hikes in February (because we will want to), they’ve got the gear so I don’t need to freeze.

But then around this point the tourist thing must’ve worn off because we had some time before we had settled on meeting friends on the North Side for dinner and I suggested we escape to North Park, which would be an attraction like those I describe in the first paragraph. North Park is wonderful, but it’s not a place you’re going to find unless you’re looking for it or looking very specifically for something like it. Since our last visit, a little over a year earlier, a small café had opened in the boat house. On this day, there was some problem with their kitchen but they were still serving drinks from the bar. However, not two or three moments after our drinks made it to our picturesque seats did my phone ring.

The view from our table at the North Park boathouse

Brian is a best friend to both Chris and I, but like most of my close friends, we don’t talk on the phone. We text and Tweet substantially, plus hang out a lot, but there is not a lot of calling, particularly out of the blue. This suggested to us that something was up. Unfortunately, something was up. On her way to a weekend camping with her family, his sister, Anna, was rear-ended while sitting in congested traffic in Pittsburgh. The server at the café was wonderful, she gave us to-go cups for our drinks and cashed us out in a hurry and we were on our way to help Brian’s sister.

When we got out to Carnegie and found Anna, the news was mixed. She was more or less fine physically and the car was still drivable. But this was her very first crash and her car is less than a year old at this point. Worse yet, she’s 2.5 hours from home and still about 2 hours from where she’s going. The three of us sit out in the parking lot of a drug store and catch up, talk, and hang out until Brian makes it up from Morgantown. Despite being shaken up, Anna gets right back on the horse and makes the drive out to the lake in Ohio.

Running a little late, we re-descend on the city and meet up with my friend from college, Jasmine, and her fiancée, Pete, at the James Street Gastropub. The food was delicious and the beer list spectacular (two things I was promised in advance). Catching up with Jasmine was wonderful, it was great to feel like I went a few years back in time to college but it was also nice to meet her fiancée. I look forward to attending their wedding in March!

When we parted ways, on another floor of the establishment a jazz band was in full swing and with the windows open the music was filling the street. It ended the wonderful day on a wonderful note.

Matewan: Replica vs. Authenticity

Williamson is the center of commerce and medicine in the area, but Matewan is probably the center of culture, at least as of late due to the efforts of locals and historians. Matewan is perhaps best known for the massacre bearing its name, which occurred over the right to unionize the mines. Reenactments of the massacre are now actually relatively common occurrences because it is an important chapter in local as well as labor history. Furthermore, efforts have also been focused on developing the rail history in the town into something tangible as well as the development of the town as a service hub as a trailhead for the Hatfield-McCoy Trails.

Our first stop was the old Magnolia High School on the edge of town. It, like Williamson High School, was consolidated into Mingo Central, which is up isolated atop a ridge along a relatively new highway. Though Magnolia seemed much newer than Williamson High School, it seemed sort of ridiculous to close such a seemingly new school. Part of me wondered why the other schools could not be consolidated into this facility. Though, to be fair, the concrete floodwall built around the structure was a little weird—though it had some interesting friezes on it.

Then, into town we visited the Matewan depot replica. They did a masterful job with the replica, unless you knew for a fact it was a replica, you’d never guess. The materials all look to be the right age and the details are all there. Inside the depot is a small gift shop and great railroad-related exhibits. I most enjoyed the artifacts from the Norfolk and Western, but there were some impressive old prints and dioramas as well. I frequently imagine that if I were alive 100 years ago in a coal town like Matewan, because I’m a woman, perhaps working in the station is one of the few jobs (besides nurse or teacher) they might’ve let me have.

Outside the replica depot is an old caboose. Cabooses tend to attract geocaches and this one was no different, but the gentleman working inside the replica depot saw us poking around the caboose and offered to show us the inside of it. We figured it had to have been one of the last cabooses in use because it seemed to have some more modern touches, though we were surprised by the lack of privacy offered by the toilet.

As we concluded the tour of the caboose, we could hear the whistle of a train. The three of us started across the parking lot to get a good view and to see if we could get just the slightest feeling of how it must’ve felt, again, a century or so ago.

Chris waving at the freight train rolling through Matewan

Local Gems: Cooper’s Rock

The best thing about having guests from out of town is the ability to view your most familiar surroundings through the eyes of those encountering them for the first time ever or at least the first time in a while. Though I really hate it when I visit somewhere and my hosts ask me what I want to do because, as an outsider, I probably don’t have a clue what I’m talking about. My typical approach is to ask my guests what kinds of things they’re interested in seeing (e.g. museums, scenery), doing (e.g. shopping, hiking), or eating. From there, I go through the mental rolodex. Today, I’d hit on Cooper’s Rock State Forest.

Cooper’s Rock has numerous features that make it popular among locals and visitors: easy driving access, plentiful parking, in addition to easy walking access to some of the most stunning features. Not everyone is an avid hiker, plus it’s nice to be able to take in some scenery wearing a pair of lousy sandals once in a while. 

Cooper’s Rock State Forest

This state forest supposedly gets its name from a fugitive who hid out from authorities in the area of what is now the main overlook. He apparently lived in the forest making barrels and selling them to locals for the better part of four decades. I am unclear of the timeline of these events because in the 1930s into the early 1940s much of the forest’s infrastructure was built by the Civilian Conservation Corps. Most of these structures are still in place to day and are easily identified by the style of architecture—rugged beauty, often close reflections of the areas they are found in.

For our purposes, we visited the Main Overlook. This ADA-accessible overlook offers breathtaking views of the Cheat Canyon after only a short walk from the main parking areas, restrooms, and large picnic pavilions (there was a wedding reception happening on the day we visited). It was also wonderful to be able to point out that, for the most part, the viewshed of the Cooper’s Rock overlook is protected due to the state forest status on the east side of Cheat Lake, the Snake Hill Wildlife Management Area on the west side of the lake, and some recent custodial agreements regarding non-Snake Hill land on the west side of the lake.

View from the Main Overlook at Cooper's Rock State Forest

The other popular overlook, Raven Rock, requires a rocky, ~2 mile hike for what is, in my opinion, not a much better view—though definitely worth it to those more physically inclined. The other great feature is the Henry Clay Iron Furnace, which is reachable via several trails and is a well-preserved example of the iron furnaces that used to number in the thousands in the general region (especially if you head up into Pennsylvania).

First in Flight

Almost everyone knows that the Wright Brothers are the fathers of aviation; that these brothers financed their dream of flight with a modest bicycle shop in Dayton, Ohio and that their dream came true on the Outer Banks of North Carolina. Indeed, both states proclaim their proud relationship to aviation on their license plates. This is just information in our collective consciousness. But there is good reason for the Wright Brothers choice of Kill Devil Hills, North Carolina.

When seeking a locale to test their experimental craft, the Wright Brothers had a few criteria. They required an area with a fairly steady and predictable breeze, wide-open and clear land, and privacy. After writing for advice, Kitty Hawk and Kill Devil Hill emerged as the ideal locale. At the Wright Brothers National Memorial it is made particularly clear that these characteristics came at a price. Transportation to Kitty Hawk was convoluted involving multiple modes over a lot of time. Then, once arriving, having to set up a primitive camp for shelter.

The monument to the Wright Brothers atop Kill Devil Hill

And since 1903, these conditions have brought millions of people back here to experience what special conditions coupled with the vision of two brothers yielded a transportation breakthrough that we still enjoy so greatly every day. My experience is just one of so many similar.

What is most noticeable really is the breeze. It is persistent and seems to carry some of the humidity away with it. At one point, it even carried off the kite of a little boy. Quick on his feet, Chris darted into the tall grass and retrieved it.

Chris returning the kite to the little boy

That brings me to the next observation: the land. The ground is sandy. The Outer Banks are literally a narrow sandbar just off shore. The only vegetation that seems to grow is grass whether long and wildly in patches or deep and beautifully in finely manicured lawns. Surprisingly, prickly pear cactus was also common. Indeed, a glider or an experimental aircraft could make a softer landing here than on the tougher, harder, working land in Ohio.

The third characteristic of interest is the one now missing: privacy. While the Outer Banks are not settled in the same density as other, similar beach and resort areas you are still surrounded by humanity. No worries though, the National Park Service has enough land that when standing at the sites where the first airplane took off and each of the three flights on December 17, 1903 (each clearly marked) the feeling of wonder is genuine.

The monument viewed from the take off point of the flights of December 17, 1903

The monument at Kill Devil Hills is outstanding, but the legacy of the Wright Brothers is still alive and well in Dayton as well. Dayton is home to the Wright-Patterson Air Force Base which in turn is home of the Museum of the United States Air Force, the subject of an earlier post.

Visit the Wright Brothers National Memorial

Learn more at Ohio History Central and North Carolina History

Conquering the Pacific Northwest: Power

After so many early mornings and hundreds of miles, sleeping in at my mother’s place felt like heaven. We slept in until about 9:00am. For us, this is sleeping in. Eventually we got the whole family together: mom, dad, grandma, Chris and I. Our Mustang not having five seatbelts, we all squeeze into my dad’s Ford Focus wagon and went to Denny’s. After breakfast Chris and I went our own way, to the bakery section of a nearby supermarket. Chris and I had an important date to celebrate.

Meanwhile, my mother was preparing one of her signature meals. After getting everything over to my grandma’s place and eating, it was time for dessert. I put the cake on the table and three sets of eyes were quizzically looking at the cake wondering what “one month” meant. There were no correct guesses. Chris and I let my family know that we got married exactly a month before. My mother ran to the bathroom crying, my dad had a stunned look on his face, and the smile on my grandmother’s face was a mile wide. Overall, the reception was good. Later on my mother confirmed that they were tears of happiness once she got over being so mad that we had not told her sooner, especially considering she had visited me in Pennsylvania for about two weeks, arriving three days after Chris and I were married by a judge at the courts in Morgantown, WV.

With a single full day remaining in Canada, Chris and I had to decide what the perfect day would be. We unanimously decided that De Dutch was the only place we could even consider getting breakfast. There is nothing like getting multiple types of meat in addition to eggs served on top of a pancake the size of a large dinner plate. Their location in Burnaby on Hastings is hidden on the lower level of the back side of a non-descript commercial building. It’s never overwhelmingly busy, but that’s fine by us!

After gorging on food Chris and I decided to visit the Stave Falls Power Plant.  The visitor’s center at this old hydroelectric facility is a hidden gem in the Lower Mainland. There are two hydro facilities at Stave Falls. One of them is brand new and generating power, the other is a facility that is about 100 years old, made obsolete by the new facility. Unlike tours of currently operational hydro facilities, guests are able to get up close to the controls and machinery at old Stave. If you’re really interested in how hydroelectricity is generated this is where you need to go.

The tour is self-guided, but begins with a video explaining how rain is a great thing (sometimes you need this reassurance in the Pacific Northwest!) because of the power it provides. This is followed by a gallery of interactive exhibits illustrating the history of electricity and municipal power systems. I particularly enjoyed the interactive exhibit where I had to connect different components of an electric transmission system to move power from the plant to homes.

After learning about the history of electricity and electricity transmission, visitors turn a corner and are suddenly in a great hall, the heart of where the power of water turns into the power in your home. Here visitors are above the generation equipment and it is impossible not to feel small among equipment capable of such power. In the distance on this upper level are rows of controls, manufactured by Westinghouse in Pittsburgh, that were staffed by numerous individuals around the clock before computerization, to manage the equipment on the lower level.

The view entering the great hall, the generators on the level below

On the lower level there is a door that takes guests onto a patio showing the old penstocks. It is difficult to get a sense of the size of the pipes feeding water into the electric generating equipment, but an employee did a wonderful job of expressing not only the size and magnitude of the pipes, but the sound of the water rushing through them. Returning indoors we mingled with equipment that was impressively immense. Simply the thought of how all of these materials made it to this, relatively, remote lake a century ago was amazing.

This is where the power was made, and this is how close you can get to it

Finally, there is another exhibit hall filled with artifacts of the early days of B.C. Hydro. This stroll down memory lane elicits feelings of nostalgia even in people too young to remember the old trolley cars, advertisements, and logos of the utility that enabled Vancouver’s development into a world-class city. Of the three hydro facility tours I have done this year: Grand Coulee Dam (Coulee Dam, WA), Stave Falls (Mission, BC), and Sir Adam Beck 2 (Niagara Falls, ON), Stave is by far the best and absolutely worth the $6 admission.

Transportation, Light, Heat, and Power

This winds down our final day in Canada. Tomorrow, the journey home begins. But remember, no vacation is over until you’ve paid for your airport parking.

Hills and Heritage

Pausing from studying for my candidacy exam on Saturday, I had the opportunity to play tour guide in Randolph and Pocahontas counties in West Virginia. Without even consciously thinking about it, transportation was a central theme to our activities.

We kicked off the trip with some geocaching, taking us out Kingwood Pike from Morgantown to West Virginia Route 92 in Reedsville, then down Route 92 into Durbin.

Our first stop beyond Morgantown was along the Decker’s Creek Rail Trail in Reedsville. Reedsville is the end of the trail and seemingly a world away from the trail’s other end on the waterfront in Morgantown. The trail is quieter and rather than hemmed into narrow valleys with roads and the creek, it is between a farm and a sprawling industrial operation. The trail is, almost uncharacteristically, in a broad open valley.

After Reedsville, the next community is Arthurdale. Arthurdale was one of the planned communities of the New Deal intended to move impoverished miners and farmers and place them into a contemporary rural community where they could be self-sufficient. The idea lost support by World War II and less than a decade after its beginning the project officially ended. The entire town is now a National Historic District.

We continued on through the towns of Newburg and Belington, with a stop in the graveyard of the oldest church in Barbour County. We met up with Corridor H, which is possibly the greatest political quagmire in highway history, and followed it to Crystal Springs Road to follow Route 92 through central Elkins and even witnessed part of a Civil War reenactment in Beverly. After following some slow moving tree removal equipment over Cheat Mountain we arrived in Durbin.

West Virginia is home to a number of excellent scenic tourist trains, the Durbin and Greenbrier Valley Railroad’s Durbin Rocket is no exception! The two-hour trip follows the Greenbrier River south toward Cass. After about 45 minutes the train takes a stop along the river where passengers can get out and, in my case, wade in the river. On such a hot day the cool water felt great, I could have stood in that river all day. On the trip back to Durbin the train stopped at a creek to take on water. Here they demonstrated how the steam engine is able to pump water up from the creek. The train took on about 1000 gallons and took about 10 minutes. The minutes seemed to drag on, but a rate of 100 gallons per minute actually seemed pretty impressive.

The Greenbrier River from the Durbin Rocket

Just before returning to Durbin a rain began to set in. We grabbed two quick geocaches on Cheat Mountain, one at an overlook and one at the summit, and hurried on to find a place for dinner. We lucked out and found some excellent homecooking at the Dailey Grille, seemingly the only place to grab a bite in Dailey. That country fried steak will not soon be forgotten.

The finishing touch of the day was visiting the American Mountain Theater in Elkins. The Branson-style show was non-stop entertainment, whether it was the contemporary country songs, comedic dialogue, or deeply moving gospel selections. Most impressive, the incredible talents performing also perform the less glamorous tasks of operating a theater, from scooping popcorn to ticket sales. Of course, the highlight of the show was a crack at Corridor H, the road that’ll be completed in the lifetime of the host’s grandchildren!

The National Museum of Dentistry

When visiting a new place it is not only important to get a sense of what makes life in this city unique, but what unique attractions this place has to offer visitors. Virtually every big city has a science center, aquarium, and art museums and while most of these are excellently done attractions, you’ve got to dig deeper! While recently visiting Baltimore, I dug deeper and I discovered the National Museum of Dentistry.

I can’t count how many cities I’ve visited and how many aquariums, art museums, and science centers that I’ve taken in, but I have never heard of a dentistry museum. This moved other more traditional attractions to lower slots on my priority list. I had to see this, and my curiosity was rewarded greatly.

Baltimore is home to the first school of dentistry in the world, and in fact the National Museum of Dentistry is housed in the original building of the Baltimore College of Dental Surgery. The Baltimore College of Dental Surgery through mergers over the years has seen it folded into the University of Maryland, but the history is still there and what a perfect place for the museum for this science. I couldn’t imagine what would be in a museum of dentistry, but I happily turned over a few dollars and jumped in with both feet.

National Museum of Dentistry, Baltimore (Photo by Andrew Horne, featured on Wikipedia)

In the museum there are two distinct types of exhibits: dental history and the modern dental professions. The former exhibits were very visually engaging with a comprehensive collection of dental implants that leave no mystery to me as to why dentists get such a painful reputation. The latter exhibits very clearly demonstrate dentistry as something a lot more comprehensive than just some guy that drills fillings into your teeth.

Prior to visiting this museum I had no particular interest in dentistry, except as an EMT, I once had for a patient someone who had taken a good blow to his jaw, bled like a stuck pig (that’s a technical term!), and remarkably did not lose, break, or chip any of his teeth. Now I feel like I better understand how that could have happened, and can imagine what the outcome could have been like even 100 years ago (though if it were 100 years ago, there’d be no EMT checking him out!).

Though possibly the neatest (and most important) thing exhibited at the museum is how close we are to being able to grow new teeth from stem cells. This is an incredibly interesting scientific development and, while likely expensive when it comes to market, I think signals the coming of even greater science to come in terms of the use of stem cells.

So if you’re in Baltimore and looking for something unique to do, I highly suggest you take 2-3 hours and explore the National Museum of Dentistry. Trust me, you’ll feel better about parting with your money than you will at the aquarium. 

For more info, check out their website.