Pittsburgh Ho! or how not to see Pittsburgh while on vacation

There has to be a little back story here or you’re going to ask me why the hell sane people would travel to Pittsburgh just to see a Mets game, especially since the Mets are…well, The Mets.

A few years ago my husband decided to surprise Ace with a birthday trip to Pittsburgh to see a Mets game. They are huge Mets fans and a new tradition of seeing a Mets game in an unfamiliar stadium every year began. Sort of. Ace fell in love with Pittsburgh and wanted to go back there every year. I mean this kid loves visiting this place, going to the museums, walking downtown, traversing the river walk and he talks about Pittsburgh and going back regularly. Wouldn’t surprise me if he ends up there for college.

So, in keeping with tradition, we scheduled the first leg of our vacation with another surprise trip to Pittsburgh for the requisite Mets – Pirates game and then an extra day and a half to wander around and see the sights with Ace pointing out all his favorite places to me and Giggles, who have not been to Pittsburgh before. That was the plan. Until Ace jammed his foot against the door frame and fractured his toe near the growth plate on his birthday. SURPRISE!

At first we thought it was just jammed and bruised. Ace decided to unjam it by pulling on the toe and relieve the pressure, turns out that was a good idea actually. When the swelling hadn’t gone down by Thursday and the top of his foot was turning that sickly eggplant purple color, it was time for the doctors. Diagonal stress fracture base of toe near growth plate. Not terrible, just inconvenient for a time. Splint on the toe and he has to wear a surgical recovery boot to keep his foot flat and not walk on it too much. This, of course, happened the day after he had been signed up for Fall Baseball and also will impinge on his swimming season some. The worst of all to him was that he would not be able to participate in vacation as…rambunctiously as he normally does, which is usually at full tilt.

No strolling around Pittsburgh. No hiking along the rocky mountain trails in the Poconos, no long walks in the woods, no diving into the lake, etc etc. Do you know how hard it is to keep a 15 year old boy subdued on vacation? I do now so just ask. I’ll supply the bottle of wine you’ll need.

One of the best parts of the trip out was that Ace didn’t even know we were heading to Pittsburgh until we were about an hour from the city. We just kept telling him we took a different route to the Poconos. Sometimes it’s nice to have a kid who closes himself into a book or audio book in the car and doesn’t bother to surface and take in his surroundings. 

We got into Pittsburgh for the Friday night game on the 20th, in time to check into our lovely room at The Renaissance Hotel, a room SuperHubby had scored on priceline several months back for an awesome price, by the way! The hotel was beautiful and is definitely a great place to stay with fabulous service and atmosphere. The only issues I had was that the bed was uncomfortably firm and the roll away bed they brought in for the kid was so old and used that the springs were clearly evident.

The hotel is right across the bridge from the baseball stadium so we headed over for the game. The view from the bridge as sunset began was fabulous. I pulled out my camera, loaded in fresh batteries and when I went to take the first picture, the camera told me to change the batteries, but no matter how many new batteries I fed that little bastard, it kept repeating the same message. Then it stopped working.

STOPPED WORKING! IN PITTSBURGH! The city with the rivers! The bridges! The architecture! The hills! The people! AND MY CAMERA DIDN’T WORK. The Universe just bitch slapped me, people. Hard. Oh Canon, we’re going to have a talk.

Our seats were in the second row a few sections past first base. I had a wonderful unobstructed view of Ike Davis’s ass. (I would show you, but MY CAMERA BROKE. I’m not bitter or anything. Not at all.) Ace’s spirits were lifted when he scored a foul ball late in the game. During warm ups, Giggles was waving at Jose Reyes and she got him to smile and wave back so she was happy. The Mets won which made both of my guys happy.

Having been told it was one of the top spots we made our way to Pamela’s for breakfast. The crowd milling about waiting for a seat seemed to confirm it. After about a 20 minute wait, we stuffed ourselves to the gills with eggs, sausage, bacon and waffles. The kids only grunted and kept shoveling waffles into their faces when I asked them how the food was, that has to count for an approval as much as the empty plates, yes? I’m glad they didn’t list the calorie count on the menu as I think there might have been a stick of butter melted in the potatoes I devoured. The chorizo sausage patties had enough kick in them that my mouth sizzled for a time after I was done.

While we waited for a cab to take us back to the hotel, I noticed this very tall man walking toward us and he looked familiar. As he drew closer, I realized that he looked exactly like the Mets pitcher. It was in fact Mike Pelfrey,  the MetsMets for his birthday and having a broken foot and Pelfrey strolled over to where we were sitting, signed Ace’s Mets hat, shook his hand, asked about his foot and chatted some about the game. (There would be pictures proving such an encounter but my CAMERA BROKE. I am aggrieved. Deeply.) I have to say that Mike Pelfrey was such a gracious man, especially after pitching for 8 innings the night before in over 90 degree heat and being accosted on the street by nerdy excited Mets fans before he could get breakfast. He made a slightly grumpy teenager happier than he had been and that’s no easy task.

Since Ace was restricted in his activities, he and SuperHubby hung out at the hotel, eating, reading and renting movies on demand before deciding to go see the Saturday night Mets-Pirates game. Giggles and I checked out the RiverWalk, the Carnegie Science Museum and SportsWorks.

We strolled back along the RiverWalk, playing some in the cascading water of the Riverfront Fountain. Giggles thought it was super cool that she could just dance in the fountain waters and climb up & down the large square blocks the water tumbled over. Lucky for us it was warm when the rains came and soaked us through as we walked back to the hotel after a “just girls” day. We finished that off with some pizza and ice cream while the guys waited out the rain delay at the baseball game.

Vacation, despite a broken toe and camera, was starting out pretty damn well.