For my birthday this year, my sweet husband surprised me with a special trip for just the two of us to Pittsburgh. He even arranged for childcare all on his own. (Thanks Mom and Dad for helping us out. Our getaway & time alone was priceless.)
Why on Earth would Eric plan a birthday trip to Pittsburgh for me in December? It's cold and rainy there - not exactly my favorite weather. I was born there, and my parents went to college and spent much of their young adult life there. As a result, I am a big Pittsburgh Steelers fan. The Steelers were playing the San Diego Chargers on Sunday, December 9 which also happens to be my birthday. It also happens that Phillip Rivers, the quarterback for the Chargers, went to NC State University, Eric's Alma mater. To top it off, Charlie Whitehurst, the back up quarterback for the Chargers, went to Clemson, so there was all kinds of football love going on the day of my birthday.
We arrived Friday afternoon, got settled into our hotel, and had a few snacks and drinks while we mapped out what we wanted to do. Part of the fun of this trip was that we had no real plan outside of the Steelers game on Sunday. We always luck out when we "wing it", and we stumble upon fun places. This trip was no different.
On Saturday, we decided to take the incline up Mt. Washington. It's a touristy thing to do but fun nevertheless. I said we needed to take the Duquesne Incline since my Dad went to Duquesne University.
The tracks going up the mountain.
The view from the top was pretty cool. We could see the three rivers joining, all the bridges, factories, Heinz Field, and numerous other places.
We were the only people on the car on the way down.
It's a steep ride.
After the incline, we headed over to the area of town called, South Side. It's jam packed full of restaurants, shops, and an outdoor market. We literally started at one end of the area and walked all the way down the one side browsing, snacking, and having a beverage at all of the "must have" spots. On our way back the other side, we stopped at the famous Primanti Brothers for a late lunch. That turned out to be one of our most exciting stops. As you can tell, it's very popular and there's always a line like this to eat. I am in the purple rain coat close to the entrance. If you look closely, you'll notice a tall fella in a grey shirt with a camo hat standing next to another tall fella in a darker grey sweater and dark jeans in the doorway. I'll get to their importance a few pictures from now.
These sandwiches are huge, and the french fries come ON the sandwich. This is definitely a man's man kind of sandwich place, but I did my best to eat part of my sandwich after picking all the fries off of it first.
Back to the tall, grey shirted fellas - it turns out that Eric and I were literally one couple's distance from Phillip Rivers, Charlie Whitehurst, and two other Chargers players. We ate our lunch, gawked at their table, and discussed how we should or should not be "those fans" that interrupt their lunch. As you can see from the next pictures, we definitely couldn't resist meeting the players. Eric decided he had a different angle - he was a fellow NCSU grad. Phillips Rivers was very gracious and talked NCSU sports with Eric for at least five minutes. We thought it was cool, and we were both a little nervous as we approached the table. My camera skills were off due to my flusteredness.
I asked the table to pose for a picture, and you can see that Charlie Whitehurst, across from Phillip, was not very excited nor was the fella sitting next to Phillip. Phillip wished me a happy birthday, and Eric and I practically skipped out of there. We immediately began texting all of our football junkie friends our fantastic news. We're goofy like that.
We continued our tour back down the South Side stopping along the way for a beverage or two.
We ended the evening at a neat little tapas restaurant and received five star treatment for my birthday dinner. It was a great day just exploring Pittsburgh and spending lots of time with my honey.
