One Weekend - Two Trips

March 10th-12th

This weekend Jed and I headed in two different directions. Jed took his Spring Break and headed to Denver with some friends to visit other friends while I stayed back east and took a road trip with a friend to Pittsburgh.

I loved seeing all Jed & company did through texts and pictures.

Tom, Megan, Jed & Brian at Red Rocks

Red Rocks Amphitheatre

Kilby, Jed, Mallory, Megan, Brian & Tom at a Colorado Avalanche Hockey Game

Pepsi Center

Street Art in RiNo District

Street Art in RiNo District

Meanwhile, on the east coast, Sam & I learned quickly that Pittsburgh was celebrating St. Patricks Day early with there main parade on Saturday so we found some appropriate attire and made our way downtown.

Met St Patrick himself and we got to be on the Yajagoff! Pittsburgh Podcast with the other guys

After we had seen enough of the parade, we went wandering and found Jimmy & Nino's bakery for lunch.

Our next stop was the Duquesne Incline to check out the views from the top of the mountain. It all felt like you were stepping back in time and the views were just amazing!

In typical #castrotravel style, it was time to find some weird & random places and Pittsburgh was full of them!

Our first weird place was Randyland. This guy is so quirky and we loved it.

Heading to a pinball arcade, Kickback Pinball Arcade, was next on our list of To Do's complete with awesome grilled cheese sandwiches for the full throw back feel.

The trifecta of unique places ended at the Bicycle Museum, Bicycle Heaven, where we saw thousands of bicycle and bicycle parts. This place was so fascinating.

We finished our day in Pittsburgh with dinner at Nicky's Thai right down the street for Arcade Comedy Theater where we watched a fantastic improv to close out our evening.

On Sunday, it was time to head home but we weren't ready to have the weekend end so we found a few adventures on our way home. But first, you can't start a road trip home without a over the top large breakfast and what better place to get that at then a diner, so off to Pamela's Diner we went.

We decided on our way out of the city to book tickets to Falling Water. It has been on both of our bucket lists and what better time to just do it. We had some time to kill while we waited for our time slot so we made the best of it by finding and friending Yogi Bear and going on a small little hike to a very icy waterfall, Cucumber Falls.

Our last top at Falling Water was just amazing! We loved going through the tour of the house and enjoying all the nature around us. It was so picture perfect with the snow covering so much. We definitely want to go back and see this house in all the different seasons.

Our very nice, grumpy tour guide that allowed me to take a photo in the only part of the house that doesn't have cameras watching us.

Football Road Trip 2.0

October 23rd-26th

For the second year in a row, Jed & I were able to hit the road to watch football. This has been so much fun for the last two years. This year it started with a Thursday night game in Lane Stadium. We had a great time smoking wings, grilling out, playing game and just hanging out with friends from all over. It was a great tailgate.

We tried smoking wings all day

The atmosphere was great and the game was a lot of fun but the outcome was not what we were hoping for. It was not pretty and we lost the game to Miami 6-30.

Friday we both finished up a few things at work and headed north to check out other football games for the weekend. We made it as far as Bedford, PA before we decided to call it a night. As we searched the area for local football games, we found Tussey Mountain High School (8-1) was playing Mt Union High School (8-0) about 30 minutes from our hotel. Clearly we had to go check out this game!

It was so much fun!! The crowd was way into it and it was a great game. Tussey Mountain was winning when we left with about 5 minutes left to play (we wanted to beat the rush to there adorable down town pizza place). The score apparently went back and forth and we found out from some fans afterwards that Mt. Union ended up winning the game.

There was a bit of disappointed in not staying til the end until the pizza showed up at our table. It was really, really good and it was great to sit and hang out while the traffic died down and we learned a lot from the locals about the area, sports and rivalries'. If you are ever in the area, definitely stop and eat at the cute little pizza joint right on Main Street. (It has no name!!)

Saturday morning we were back on the road again heading up to State College, home of the Nittany Lions. We spent the afternoon walking around the town and campus. It is a beautiful campus with plenty of changing leaves everywhere.

They had a lot of art all around campus. It was great to explore and enjoy the beautiful weather.

We were able to get a picture with the lion statue and eat ice cream from the Penn State Creamery.

That evening, Penn State played Ohio State in there White Out game. This was very impressive. I am not sure I have seen a better White Out event. We found some white and joined the crowd. The atmosphere was so much fun and the crowd really gets into it.

It was a great game and even when into overtime. Ohio State ended up winning in the end, 31-24 in the second overtime.

We had about an hour to drive to get to our next location and even though it was super late, it didn't matter, we were wired from the game so the drive to Johnstown, PA when by really quickly.

On Sunday morning, we got up and out and headed to the Flight 93 Memorial. It was a cold morning but we spend quite a while exploring, reading and learning about what happened in and around this sleepy town and on Flight 93. It is a very powerful memorial and I am really glad we made the trip.

The large boulder is the marker of the impact point

It is still so difficult to wrap my head around what happen so many years ago and how they are still working on the memorial for this site so many years later.

Our last stop on our football road trip was to catch an NFL game in Heinz Field. The Steeler's share this field with the Pittsburgh Panthers so we have both been to this stadium to watch the Hokies play but never to see NFL. It is a very different feel.

Before the game started, we had enough time to hit a must in the city, Primanti Bros.

After lunch, we headed to catch up with friends before heading into the game.

Art on our way to the game

We had so much fun at the game and Ben Roethlisberger became the fourth quarterback in the NFL to win 100 of his first 150 games.

Unfortunately, we were not able to stay til the end to celebrate since we had such a long drive home but before we hit the road in the 4th quarter, we found some family also in the stadium to watch the Steelers beat the Colts.

 I absolutely love our football road trips, checking out different little towns and meeting new people. I can not wait to see what other stadiums we can hit in the future.