Who all here remembers that? Yeah it has been quite a while for a good walking tour blog, but as I was sitting here watching a hockey game today I realized that it would be in my best interest to venture outside, with this being the warmest day of the year so far and all. I would say that the weatherman said we were going to get near our record high of 82 for this date, but then I realized it was indeed a weatherman, and they have as much credibility as Colin Powell at the U.N. So instead I scurried over to the window, and really everyone should have one if for no other reason that to check the actual weather, and saw that it was indeed nice outside, so after sitting through a pretty good hockey game (Detroit-Chicago), I decided I had best venture out before this opportunity is lost on me and I end up regretting not making something of the day. But where to go? Well on a beautiful day like this probably the best place to go is the park, just to see how many others were taking in the warm temps like I had planned on doing.
So we start right here, on Blvd of the Allies leading into Schenley Park. All was pretty and truth be told I could have made a walking tour blog of just the number of fine backsides that went jogging by me through the course of today's stroll, but that would have been creepy for all involved. Or to paraphrase Julie Bologna, "Not just creepy, hyper creepy." Yes, I am the only guy who reads this blog that will get that joke. Entertainment for an audience of one indeed.
Before I go on, let me just say that Multiply needs to fix this whole dragging photos thing. I don't know why, it used to be easy to just go over to the scroll on the right and carry the picture down. Now it is some kind of Twister like game, left photo - blue and all that jazz, that makes putting together a blog like this much harder than it used to be. Anyway, at the end of the bridge and after passing a couple of fine joggers who shall remain nameless, if for no other reason than I don't know their names, we come upon the lower part of Schenley Park, where the largest of the pavillions are, as well as the largest playground, Again I opted for a wider shot rather than run up on the playground and starting to snap pictures of little kids, because if there is one thing hyper creepier than snapping pics of girl's backsides, it would be a strange man snapping photos of little kids. I might have been mistaken for a Catholic or something.
Yes, this photo dragging thing really blows, especially when I am trying to be all left/right creative. At least if I center them it is easier to copy and paste, I just have to remember to delete the photo that I copied. Anyway, also in the lower portion of the park is the swimming pool, which obviously isn't open for business yet. They normally open somewhere around Memorial Day, so for now the pool remains empty, but in about a month or so it will return to it's full glory of being the little kiddie pee pond that we have come to grow and love.
Apparently I didn't get the memo, because before I could begin the ascent to the Schenley Oval Overlook, I ran into these gamers all dressed in D&D garb, either mock fighting each other or preparing to defend the park from an onslaught of orcs, I am not sure which. Thankfully they did not ask me to join them, otherwise I would have been forced to run home and get my 20 sided die and see if I could make a saving throw versus suck. Okay, I know I am the only guy who got the Julie Bologna joke, but please tell me at least one other person got that one.
About halway to the top I pass some people just playing Frisbee in one of the open green areas, as well as some people who are taking advantage of the Frisbee golf course that is in the park. I will not even begin to start a rant on how much of a non sport Frisbee golf is, hell golf itself is barely a sport but at least it has some soap opera type charm, like Tiger Woods' wife attacking him with a golf club, though that never really happened, wink, wink or Fuzzy Zoeller going all Michael Richards with his fried chicken and collard greens comments a few years back. If a Frisbee golfer were to cheat on his girlfriend it would be a non issue, because the minute she found out he played Frisbee golf I am quite sure she would have packed her bags and went all Leonard Nimoy "In Search Of.....A Non Geek". A piece of advice to said female, don't go down the hill, because these guys look like Charles Atlas compared to the basement dwellers that are fending off the orcs down the road.
We stop with the comedy for just a second (well I think it is comedy, but laughter is in the eye of the beholder) and instead opt for a shot of the Cathedral of Learning from about two thirds of the way up the road to the overlook. See, it is nice outside, but I still refuse to give the weatherman credit because the moment I do I am sure it will starting snowing again.
Okay, almost at the overlook now and thankfully it is not even warmer tahn it currently is. Not that warmer temps would have been bad mind you, I like hot weather myself because then it means it isn't snowing, but there would have been even more people laying out today and they would have been in bikinis most likely, trying hard to get a jump on the tanning season. For a guy that is trying hard to behave himself and not take pictures of backsides, bikinis might have been a bit much. Not that I am a prude, I like the female form as much as the next guy that isn't a figure skater, but I refuse to sign any waiver of accountability if girls in bikinis walk by while I have a camera in my hands.
Okay, we have reached the top of the overlook, as evidenced by the fact I can actually get an unobstructed shot of downtown Pittsburgh from up here. If I would have taken a shot of downtown earlier it would have been through a tangle of tree branches, unless I climbed to the top of one of the trees, in which case I most assuredly would have fallen out, probably broken my back, which would mean no walking tour blog. So far better to keep my feet planted firmly on the ground.
At the overlook there is a sign, this sign in fact, and there is information on three different sides of it regarding the park, its history, its green initiatives and blah, blah, blah because as we all know, when someone is outside enjoying physical activity the thing they want to do most of all is read. Not biking, or rollerblading, or skating or fending off the orc invasion, but read. I don't have anything against reading, I do quite a bit of it myself, I just choose not to do it while doing I am out being all exercisical.
Some of the things that can be done at the top of the overlook include soccer, an activity that makings reading look pleasureable by comparison, or tennis, or even jogging around the track that encompasses both the tennis courts and soccer field. When the weather gets better more consistently there is sometimes also a volleyball court up here, but since this was the first real warm day the nets weren't set up yet. Tis a shame, I could have used a good game of volleyball to work off some of my fat, as opposed to just walking around taking pictures.
One of the things you can't do however is skating, at least not at this time of year. When it is colder the rink is usually pretty busy, maybe it has to do with the popularity of ice hockey around these parts, or maybe figure skating has greater appeal than I would imagine, but in any event as long as it is warm outside then skating is not an option. And that pretty much concludes everything that can be done up at the overlook. Now I could go and venture to the far side of the park, I have only covered about half of it to this point, and there is still a golf course to check out and what not, but that will be saved for another day. Instead it is time to head home. That doesn't mean it is the end of picture taking however, I still have about a 20-30 minute walk to get back to my friendly confines after all.
That little dot in the middle of the picture is a robin, a sure sign of spring. Certainly moreso than a bunch of drunks gathering around Punxsutawney to see whether or not an overweight rodent does or does not see its shadow. Not that the rodent can speak mind you, rather it is some local assclown who apparently speaks groundhog and interprets it for the rest of us. So the skill set of being able to speak groundhog means you have one day of employment during the course of the year, because really, when was the last time anyone filled out a job application and was hired based on their ability to speak groundhog? For the other 364 days of the year however, he is just a yokel with no other discernable skill set, much like the groundhog itself. Then again, given the relative innaccuracy of the groundhog's prediction, maybe he should be hired as a weatherman, he couldn't be any worse than the people that currently do it and they don't speak groundhog at all.
You can tell that we are getting close to the end of our trip, because I am able to take a snapshot of the Oakland skyline. Not that their is anything significant about the Oakland skyline, it is pretty much all owned by two entities, either the University of Pittsburgh, and the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center. Save for the Cathedral of Learning, there is no great piece of architecure, so instead you get this.
Thankfully if I turn around and look off the other side of the bridge I can see this, one of the many trails that wind throughout the park and one of the things in Oakland not owned by the University of Pittsburgh. At least not yet, but give them time. After all, it was the University of Pittsburgh that managed to buy out the Syria Mosque, one of Pittsburgh's classic concert venues, just so they could put in a parking lot, a process that they repeated years later when they managed to kick both the State Store and the Post Office off of the same block. In Pennsyvania, State Stores are where you have to go to buy wines and spirits, as the selling of alcohol beyond that of beer is handled by the state. So in one fell swoop, Pitt had managed to kick both the state of PA (the State Store) and the federal government (the Post Office) off of the same block for, yes, another parking lot.
And I am just about out of the park now, though I thought I would stop and take a picture of Phipp's Conservatory. Some of you may remember that I had taken pictures here in the past, a previous incarnation of the walking tour, but since the entrance to Phipps has been remodeled, I thought I would go ahead and snap a new photo. I was hoping to get some pictures of the outdoor ponds as well, they have a couple of fountain like structures along the one side of the building, but they haven't been filled with water yet. When they are, they are filled with different aquatic plants and sometimes they will have fish in them as well. But for not they are just dry cement, and who wants to take pictures of that?
Across the street from Phipps is Flagstaff Hill. This is another fine spot to watch people laying out come summer, usually the hillside will be covered with sun bathers, perhaps because there are times when the sun can be a rare occurrence around these parts. What is also cool about Flagstaff Hill is that during the summer movies are shown in the pak, usually on Sunday and Wednesday nights on a screen which is set up right about where the group of people is located in almost the middle of the picture. then everyone is welcome to sit on the hillside above the screen and watch a movie for free. Usually the offerings in the "Cinema in the Park" series aren't too bad, not that they are first run pictures, but at least they are pretty recent. They don't have the list of this years movies yet, maybe when they get around to it I will see if I can fit a few into my schedule since I am off most nights.
Lastly there is this little parklet, it is at the entrance of Schenely Park, just across the street from the Cathedral of Learning. This is another fine achievement of the folks at the University of Pittsburgh, since after knocking stuff down to build parking lots, they took a parking lot and turned it into a park, even though there is a much larger park literally a block away. This is for those people who like the park experience but don't actually want to walk to a park.
Having escaped the park, and the parklet without getting into trouble with snapping pictures of women's better parts, I was all content to stop for some homemade ice cream on the way home, a treat to help kill off the healthy effects of walking for about an hour, but apparently some other people had the same idea that I did, and since I hate standing in line, I just took one last photo of the line outside of Dave and Andy's and went home.
This is the part where I would say something clever about the trip, but I can't think of anything clever to say, so I will just say "The End".
