leaving pgh and heading south

I'm way behind.  Seems like we left Pennsylvania ages ago ...

We left John's car at a lot somewhere near the Pittsburgh airport and then headed south to Rocky's wedding in Clemson SC.

This was the last photo of a Pittsburgh street on the way to the airport ...

... We had lunch on somewhere in West Virginia ...

 A West Virginia homestead.

 Roamed around the Clemson University Campus while waiting for the wedding.  Impressive trees.

 Seems that Clemson was (is) a military school ...

 ... where soldiers are cut right out of the bricks of the school ...

 Jubilee considers ...

 More impressive trees ...

 ... and boys becoming soldiers ...

 Rocky and John on the afternoon before the wedding.  Rocky and John are "double cousins" - their fathers are brothers and their mothers are sisters, married in a double ceremony, and then raised their families in a double house.

 We looked for this art festival in downtown Clemson, but it was cancelled because of rain.  (Would the outdoor wedding be canceled?)  We found a really good pita place for lunch.

 Then we found some Cioffoletti cousins at the Marriot (we had to stay at the Days Inn because of Jubilee not being allowed in the fancy hotel.)

 Very cute Cioffoletti kids.  This is Luke Cioffoletti from New Jersey (Rocky's grandson).

 And this is Allie Cioffoletti (Luke's sister and Rocky's grand-daughter).

 Another one of Luke Cioffoletti.

Batmobiles

This is 3 generations of Batmobile 1965 TV, 1989 Batman movie and 2012 Black Night movie filmed in Pittsburgh.

With Arnold Palmer at Latrobe

John is able to get direct and cheap flights home on the weekends when he gets the Spirit airline flights from the Latrobe PA airport into Fort Lauderdale.   The Latrobe Airport is named after golfer, Arnold Palmer, who grew up nearby. 

John took this photo for his mother, who is an avid golfer!

a rainy day

 

A rainy Saturday and John needed a new pair of shoes so we headed down to a place called "Waterfront" the other side of Pittsburgh.  On the site of the old Homestead Steel Mills is an outdoor shopping mall, the likes of which we have near our home in Florida.  

There's not much left of the massive Steel Works other than these chimneys.  For more than a century this steel-making site was one of the most important in the United States, producing rolled armor plate for ships and tanks, beams and steel pilings for buildings, locks, dams and bridges,  and axels and wheels.  From what I understand these mills were also responsible for much of the pollution that marked Pittsburgh during those days.  When the Homestead Steel Works shut down in 1986, it occupied more than 430 acres and 450 buildings.  

The USA imports most of its steel now because it is cheaper to import than to make. (There goes those good American jobs.)

There was a little bridge from the shopping area to the river (though this photo is looking from the river back to the shopping area).

 We guess that this is the Monongahela River.  It looks clean here, a paddling of ducks were swimming down river.

 John didn't find the shoes that he wanted, and we couldn't think of anything else that we need.  It seems that we have everything we need.  We had lunch at P.F. Changs, but there was a problem in the kitchen and the delay was so long that the manager gave us our salads for free.  Good salads, too.

Saturday afternoon dog wash

Despite the warm day, the water was cold!!  Jubilee suffered through it.

Meanwhile, in search of some ingredients for an Umbrian Peasant soup, we ventured down to the Strip in Pittsburgh.  Though you can find most anything there, we were unable to find a meaty veal soup bone! 

 Flowers are sold everywhere now ...

 Not sure if these look good or not ...  Regardless, food is plentiful.

Bruno Sammartino - Christmas News

Correstion: This story was in yesterday's (Christmas Eve) paper.  We just didn't see the paper until today.

The lead story in the Pittsburgh newspaper today (Christmas Day) is a story about Bruno Sammartino.  If you don't know about Bruno Sammartino, you should.  Sammartino was the longest reigning champion of the World Wide Wrestlig Federation, holding the title from 1963 to 1971, and again from 1973 to 1977.

John says this was back when wrestling was still a serious sport, before it became just a "show".  He remembers watching on TV in 1960 when Sammartino picked up 640 pound Haystacks Calhoun,  lifted him over his head, turned around and threw him to the mat.

Sammartino was John's hero.  He called his cousin, Rocky, this morning to tell him about the Sammartino newspaper article.

Sammertino is a Pittsburgh native.  Well, sort of.  He came here when he was a 14 year old skinny kid, escaping the Nazis in Italy.  Pure Italian lore.