Day 9 Week 2, Monday 28 April 2025

It was nice to have a day off. The Travelers Rest hostel in South Pittsburgh is great. An old office building converted to a hotel. We mostly doubled up in the rooms, there were 5 separate bathrooms for everyone to use, each with a shower, very clean. The beds were comfortable and most important- no large amount of train noise and no fire sirens going off. I slept great last night! Today after breakfast, Mel, Chet and I walked several miles across the river to the Three Rivers Point State Park to the marker where the Great Allegheny Passage trail officially ends. Beautiful views from here of the football stadium across the river. This is where the three rivers- Ohio, Monongahela and the Allegheny meet. After that, Mel and I took an Uber to the Carnegie Museum area, walked through the University of Pittsburgh tower, the “Cathedral of Learning”. Really cool gothic architecture inside, built in the 1920’s. There are these interesting rooms used for classes on the 1st and 3rd floors called Nationality Rooms, built by the countries whose people contributed to building Pittsburgh. Each one features architecture and furniture representing some historical time period for each country. Really well done. We then headed over to the Carnegie Art Museum- some really nice modern art and impressionist paintings there. My Samsung phone crapped out on me at this time, so we headed over to a nearby Apple Store and I bought an iPhone. Wanted to make sure I have a reliable means of communication as we head westward! Over there in the Shadyside part of town we had a great lunch- I had Swiss cheese, mushroom and onions on a burger with a side of crispy French Fries and a cold beer. Ahhhh that was good. Then back to the Carnegie to the Natural History Museum. A really good collection of dinosaur fossils there including a cute baby Tyrannosaurus Rex.

We had our map meeting this evening to go over the route for tomorrow. A lot more hill climbing in front of us, and riding on roads for a significant amount of time, a change of pace from the last week riding on the C&O trail and the GAP trail. But everyone seems ready to go!