Pittsburgh

While most of these pictures were taken in Pittsburgh, I also visited the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland enroute.   This pic was taken in a park near the Hall; I liked the juxtaposition of the guitar and the rubber stamp.

You could only take pictures in a small part of the museum, but Slash's guitar was in that area!

Here's Janis Joplin's car.

Now shifting to Pittsburgh, Nancy and I visited the Carnegie museum.  For one $15 admission you can see both the art and natural history museums...great value!  This skeleton has been in the museum's collection for over a century, since the bones were collected in Colorado and Utah in the 1890s on an expedition sponsored by the Carnegie.  For many years this critter was called Brontosaurus, but it turns out that that was a mistake; it's actually an Apatosaurus...the name Brontosaurus was erroneously applied to a skeleton that was thought to represent a different species but really didn't. 

Here's Allosaurus, the alpha predator of the Jurassic period!

While Allosaurus and then T-Rex were the head honchos on land, this bloke, Tylosaurus, ruled the seas.  He grew up to 40 feet long, had sharp teeth, and an attitude to match.  Great whites would have lost that matchup!

The Carnegie has a really neat exhibit showing five stages in the development of the horse.  Eohippus, the smallest, was about the size of a dog and had five toes on each foot...no hooves.  He lived in the Eocene, 50 million years ago.  By the Miocene period, 10-20 million years ago,  Meryhippus, the horse on the far right, had developed hooves but still had two vestigial toes on each foot.  The largest horse, Equus, lived during the Ice Age and was essentially identical to the modern horse. 

The art museum at Carnegie is also world class.  Here's a statue of Ganesh, the Indian elephant god.

The museum has a nice collection of impressionists, my fave.  This is one of Monet's water lilies pictures.

Loved this modern painting of a boy...great colors!

Saturday night it was on to PNC park, the Pirates' fine new ballpark on the banks of the Allegheny River.  In front of the park is this statue of Honus Wagner, owner of eight NL batting titles and one of the greatest players of all time.  This statue was originally at Forbes Field, the old home of the Pirates, but it has been moved twice since it was dedicated in 1955; first to Three Rivers Stadium, then to PNC.

Like AT&T park in San Francisco, Pittsburgh's ballpark is right on the water.  Unlike AT&T, the downtown skyline is close at hand!  Here's the view from the upper deck.  The Allegheny is between the park and the skyline.

Milwaukee has sausage races.  In Pittsburgh, they race pierogis!  I had my first pierogis on Sunday while watching football with Nancy and Dave...delicious!

The Pirates put on a fireworks show after the game.  It was absolutely the best I have ever seen!  A spectacular barrage!  And the little round light near the center of the picture is the full moon.

The skyline glitters on the Allegheny below the full moon.  Just a few hundred yards to the right, the Allegheny merges with the Monongahela to form the Ohio River.