Bob and I didn’t have to get up too ungodly early on the morning of Tuesday, July 29, 2008. We were staying at the Red Roof Inn in Canton, Ohio and they didn’t serve a continental breakfast, so we were up and on our way by about quarter of nine. Mom would have been disappointed that we chose such a place with no mornin’ eats. The First Ladies Museum didn’t open until 10am, so we had time to make a couple of pit stops on the way. The second one was McDonalds.
The first one was the grave of Thurman Munson, which was Bob’s little last minute add-on to our itinerary. I referred to Mr. Munson alternately as either Herman Munster or ‘that guy who wrote Moby Dick.’ But in reality, baseball fans will surely know that Thurman Munson was the New York Yankees’ famed catcher for ten years who was tragically killed landing his personal airplane in 1979. The Yankees have since retired his jersey number 15.
At the grave of Herman Munster
After the McDonalds consumption, we made it to The First Ladies Museum, where I drove around the entrance traffic gate and apparently parked in the employee section. It appeared that this was the only parking area because Bob and I had not yet realized that a second portion was added to the First Ladies Museum as we knew it, which had not been here when we had visited ten years prior. It was techically now known as the First Ladies Library. Gee, that word library is getting thrown around quite a bit these days at the Presidential sites!
This new section was located in a former bank, and was a noble effort to create a nice museum dedicated to our nation’s First Ladies. Unfortunately, they are not quite there yet. The highlight was watching Bob squirm as he desperately held back in commenting on one of the current ‘themes’ of the museum, White House Tails. This consisted of little more than paper mache figures representing nine of the Presidential pets, but Bob was ready to explode with a Monica Lewinsky joke. I knew that the museum wasn’t quite there when our guide took us to see the bank vault in which Laura Bush was stored when she visited the Library!
The banners declare the First Ladies Library but the building still recalls the bank that once inhabited the walls
After touring the Library itself, we then toured the former-First Ladies Museum, which was the home of William McKinley’s in-laws – and still had some of the First Ladies memorabilia located in there too. This and all of the other William McKinley sites mentioned in this posting can be further explored here.
Next on the agenda were the main reasons that we were in Canton in the first place: the grave and National Monument dedicated to William McKinley, along with the William McKinley Presidential Library and Museum (again with the overuse of the term library) situated next to it. We also stopped at the West Lawn Cemetery to see the vault where McKinley’s body lied while the monument was constructed. Details of all of these locations can be found in the William McKinley posting as noted above.
The order of events was this: Library, Monument, West Lawn, return to Monument to see the President’s daughters markers that we forgot were there and at which time we figured out we could drive the car around to get into the monument rather than walking to the top of the tremendously long flight of stairs that made Bob wheeze in agony.
The McKinley Library had an eclectic group of displays, like this dinosaur…
…and this window ad for Comstock Worm Pellets
Bob and me at the grave of our fallen commander-in-chief
Rare behind the scenes photo of me gathering pictures for my website. I even get down on my knees just to give the readers the kind of in-depth coverage that they deserve.
It took just over an hour to go northeast from McKinley’s grave in Canton to his birthplace in Niles, Ohio. This location too can be found in the McKinley posting. We then traveled about two hours southeast to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Man, that Niles really is out of the way of everything!
In an unprecedented move, Bob poses with a Niles trash can
This was my first time in Pittsburgh and I was rather surprised that it was a relatively nice city. This was the third city in a row that we had visited (the first two being Detroit and Cleveland) that was notoriously shunned by the general population. Of course the downtown Pittsburgh area might not have reflected the outskirts of the city, but what we saw was fairly nice.
The city of Pittsburgh
Getting ready to enter the Hard Rock by the community square fountain
We parked in a garage and then walked around a nice mall area to get to our second Hard Rock Cafe of the trip. It was close to 5:30 when we ordered our food. We sat under a nice KISS display and I gobbled up the tasty Red, White, and Blue Burger – which was a cajun jobby topped with crumbled bleu cheese and fried onion rings. Our waitress tried her best to meet our demands and take both our orders and our pictures even though the place was crazy-busy.
Proving Pittsburgh
Another shameless Big 7 plug: rare figurines of the Beatles found at the Hard Rock
Enjoying my cajun burger and a well-deserved Long Island ice tea
Bob and I then headed to PNC park to catch the 7pm Pittsburgh Pirates game. It wasn’t too terribly difficult or expensive to find a reasonable spot in a parking garage, but that was because it was about a half-mile away from the park, which we walked to over the now-closed big yellow bridge: one of the Three Sisters bridges, this one named after Roberto Clemente.
Messing around on the way into the park
As a sign of affection, Roberto Clemente pats me on head
The Pirates were playing the Colorado Rockies. It looked as if the game was going to be a real yawner when the Rockies scored three runs in the first inning – and then in the third inning both teams scored leaving the Pirates down 1-4. But amazingly, they came back in the fifth and sixth innings with two runs in each, leaving them now ahead 5-4. At this point Bob decided he had seen enough of this park, which he was visiting for the first time. So we went on the infinitely more important quest to find and scarf down a stadium hotdog. The Pirates ended up maintaining their lead and won 6-4.
Trying to be PC at PNC
We had to run after this swarthy Pirate mascot to get a photo, but I’m glad we did. It came out nice.
Hot Dog!
I did enjoy the game, but took even more satisfaction in mocking the vendor who kept repeating “BUDBUD LIIIIEEYT”, the drunk moustached loudmouth next to us, and the dude that looked exactly like my actor idol Robert DeNiro. Oh and by the way, I have never had a foul ball hit closer to me than I did at this game. I imagined what it would feel like to get hit on the head with one of them.
Bob reacts to Drunky Drunkerson
Okay, you tell me who this looks like
It wasn’t all that easy of a task to find a motel for the night in downtown Pittsburgh, and while driving around, we saw a little bit more of the city at night – places that it wasn’t fun to be in at night. But we made it safe and sound to our Knights Inn. This would be our last motel of the trip. We had one more day to work our way back to Dayton and conlude our five-day road trip.
The trip will continue…
Gee, your picture with the pirate mascot has a little bird on his left shoulder.
Not only got a new ball park but a new Hard Rock in on this stop.
Bob
September 20th, 2008
Now I see where the photo comes from!
Are you sure that wasn’t DeNiro?
BTY, I love Pittsburgh
Heidi
September 23rd, 2008