Pittsburgh! Downtown, Brad's Pinball Game, Meeting Nicole's Family at the Temple Open House

-- Downtown Pittsburgh --

This morning, I drove to downtown Pittsburgh and walked around. Pittsburgh truly is a city of bridges, with multiple bridges on all three rivers -- the Allegheny, the Monongahela, and the Ohio.

I walked across the Sixth Street Roberto Clemente Bridge over the Allegheny river and saw a crowd of Pirates fans waiting to get into the ballpark to watch this afternoon's game against the Seattle Mariners.

Then I walked back across the river to the confluence at Point State Park, where the Allegheny and Monongahela rivers join to form the Ohio river. 

I took a photo at the confluence of the rivers. The Steelers stadium is also across the Allegheny river, just like the Pirates stadium.

The French built Fort Duquesne on this point in 1754. The location is marked on the ground, and the original borders outlined with granite strips on a large field.

Fort Duquesne was destroyed by the French before the British took over the area and established their own fort on the point -- Fort Pitt. 

Fort Pitt was used by the British during the French and Indian War, and it was the western headquarters of the Continental Army during the American Revolution. All that is left of Fort Pitt is a small defensive structure called a redoubt that was buit in 1764 and used to help protect Fort Pitt against Indian attacks.

On my way back to the car, I was impressed by the Pittsburgh Plate Glass Industries headquarters building. It looks like a giant temple, and certainly shows off their construction glass.

-- Pinball --

After my walk around the downtown area, I went in search of a couple of my nephew Brad's pinball machines. He used to work for a pinball company. He designed the artwork for their Ninja Eclipse pinball machine, and also worked on the art for their Looney Tunes pinball. Brad had texted me a couple of arcade addresses in Pittsburgh that have pinballs machines he helped design.

A game center named Pins Mechanical Co had the Ninja Eclipse, and I played it three times. I'm not a good pinball player, and hadn't played in years, but I tried it for Brad's sake. 😊

My highest score was 191,880. By comparison, the highest score registered on this machine was 7,827,800.

The game center is actually very nice. In addition to pinball machines, they have a bowling game called duckpin, where wires are connected to the pins from above. After a throw, the pins get pulled up to clear the lane and the ones that didn't get knocked over get lowered back down. It's fun to watch. The balls are small (maybe 5" around?), and you get three throws to a frame instead of the typical two.

The game center also has ping pong, foosball, free bocce ball and giant jengs, a couple of giant slides, ring toss, and other fun activities. It would be a fun place to bring a date or have a kid's birthday party.

 

The second arcade I was going to visit has the Looney Tunes pinball that Brad also worked on, but that arcade opens late in the day, and wasn't open yet.

-- Meeting Nicole and her Family --

I talked with my niece Nicole earlier in the week. Nicole, her husband Ryan, and their three children live in Ohio. The LDS church just finished a new temple in a Pittsburgh suburb named Cranberry Township. Nicole and her family were planning on driving to Pittsburgh for the temple open house tour today, so we agreed to meet at the temple!

I had met Ryan and their daughter before, but I hadn't met their two sons. It was great to spend the afternoon with them!

If you want a quick view of the interior, the church created a virtual tour video of the temple.  To watch the video, click here. I really like the stained glass. The design is based on flowering dogwood trees, with gold, pink and green colored glass, and a blue sky background.

Here is an example of the stained glass. You're not allowed to take photographs inside the temple during the tour, but I found the below photo online on the church website. The second photo, below, is a screenshot I took on my phone from the virtual tour video.

After the open house, Nicole and Ryan treated me to dinner at the Smoky Bones restaurant. I ordered the smoked ribs, which were excellent!

I thoroughly enjoyed talking with Nicole, Ryan, and their children during dinner. It was nice to sit back and get to know them better. They told me about their nice house in Ohio that has a large shared pond in the back. They really like living there.

Ryan is a professor. He and their three kids all start back to school tomorrow, and Nicole starts back to work tomorrow also. So I was lucky to meet up with them this weekend before their life gets busy again!

I spent the night in Cranberry township. It is a nice, clean community that reminds me of Roseville, California. It seems to be mostly white, upper middle class, and has stores and a lot of new construction. The walmart and planet fitness are just a few blocks from each other, which is convenient for me.