The Steel(er) City.............Part One

Pittsburgh........is a crazy place. That's an odd way to start a blog post, definitely not how my teacher would suggest starting an essay:-)
But the fact is, when you go to Pittsburgh for a long weekend, all for the purpose of hockey, and you stay in the SAME hotel, on the SAME floor with the whole hockey team......it gets a little cray cray:-)

We left bright and early Friday morning, heading out around 6ish.......Pitts(abbreviating b/c Pittsburgh is a long word to type:-) is about 7 1/2 hours away, but it feels like MUCH longer, due to the fact that to get there, you have to drive through Virginia.......and West Virginia......and much of Pennsylvania, all VERY......LONG......STATES.....

But the scenery??? Absolutely breathtaking, especially now, when the leaves are changing

The view......isn't it gorgeous?!?

Random dustwork:-)

 Tunnelsssssss!!!!

At this point we were about halfway there

So this picture is a little confusing, but focus hard and maybe you can see it........no? ok, so all those little orangy dots in the picture??? Those are pumpkins! We passed so many pumpkin farms!

Funny, I guess I never thought about where pumpkins come from:-)

Bridges are so cool up north

 We were a long way from home:-)

This was my brother, and this was his creepily limp arm

 This was the hotel; it was this really posh hotel right outside of Pitts. that all of the hockey teams playing in the tournament had to stay in.....which means, there were a lot of walking hockey sticks.

 This is what it looks like when 8 people share a teensy-weensy hotel room. We never go out to eat, reason being 1: it tends to get reallllly expensive, especially with three boys that eat like its going out of style and 2: my parents are really health-conscious people......all that to say, my mom brought so much food, it was crazy.
Oh, plus her handy crockpot, which she made hot dogs out of one night and meatballs the next.
Lets just say.....that room was a loud cacophony of smells:D

 all the luggage.....

I have a serious addiction to hotel towels.....they're so FLUFFYYYYYYYYYY!!!!

and a beautiful Pitts. house to end this first part of my post!!
Actually, if we're going to be specific, this wasn't Pitts.
To get to the rinks where the games where held, we went through several different boroughs, which are the northern equivalent of a Mint Hill or a Matthews.

This was the borough of Green Tree, but we also went through the borough of Scott Township, and several others that i can't remember b/c i was so preoccupied with how incredibly CURVY and SCARY the roads are at night.....
Next part of this post will be about my family's trip INTO the city,......actually, just outside of it.
I might have to make this more than a two-part post...........