Traverse City Adventure: Pittsburgh in a storm

DAY 11 • 22 AUGUST 2017 • WEST NEWTON

We broke camp at 0730, loaded up and headed for Pittsburgh.  We arrived at about 1230.  We tried to rendezvous with Trish’s mom, Betty, but logistics got the better of us. We’ll catch up with her the next time she’s visiting Rehoboth.

Two thunderstorms sandwiched us as we crossed the Monongahela into downtown Pittsburgh.  Drenched.  We pulled under the marquis of the Wyndham Grande and the hops kind of stared.  Later we befriended one who helped us lug all our stuff to a 22nd story floor.  That gave him plenty of time to tell us about his hobby of catching rattlesnakes and copperheads.  

“I use a forked stick sometimes but usually a cinched loop on the end of a stick.  But I never kill them.  I don’t believe in that.”

He also told us about his pet box turtle.  “I’ve had it 54 years, since I was a little boy,” he said. “In a fenced area in my backyard.  It burrows into a pile of composted leaves to stay away from predators at night.  I like reptiles.”

Then he told us about the 36-year-old man who died after being bit by a mountain rattler in western Pennsylvania, north of Pittsburgh, last year.  ‘Picked up a log.  It got him on the hand.  Died less than a day later of cardiac arrest.”

I don’’t think there are more rattlers around, just more people to get bit.  And more news outlets to report on those bites. Uplifting.

This was a work day.  Wrote a column for the paper about the trip; wrote an editorial about the controversial Georgetown Confederate monument (in Friday’s Cape Gazette); and had a nice conversation with former Gov. Jack Markell about his recent bicycle ride across the US.  I wanted to hear what political impressions he had.  Read about it in next Tueday’s Cape Gazette in the Politics column.

Today’s miles brought our total to 397.