Saw that the Red Sox were playing in Pittsburgh on my birthday this year and it inspired me to make the trip and see them on the road, and we ended up making it a whole road trip and doing a bunch of stuff.
First stop was Brooklyn, where I have a bunch of very close longtime friends. We arrived in the DUMBO neighborhood and my peeps are all closer to Williamsburg, so they suggested we take the ferry to get over in their direction. I was a little skeptical bc I'd never done that before on any of my many trips to the city. I was worried it would be a pain in the butt and maybe confusing for a first-timer, but it was absolutely not and it ended up being a highlight of the trip. We caught it at Golden Hour on an already beautiful day and it was pretty amazing.
After the Ferry, we met most of our friends in McCarren park and huing for a few before going and getting a great Mexican dinner at Calexico. After another beautiful ferry ride back to our hotel neighborhood, we turned in for the night.
In the morning we visited our remaining friends at their place to visit with them and their young son. We were treated to breakfast which is always great when you're on a travel budget and really nice of our friends. After not long enough catching up and hanging with our toddler pal, we hit the road again.
We arrived in Washington DC shortly before the baseball game we were hoping to attend so we just headed straight to the ballpark. As we were arriving in downtown DC we turned a corner, looked up and saw the Capitol Building. No matter your political affiliation or your stance on America and/or her politics, the Capitol Building itself is just impressive. Its so iconic and recognizable. Its like seeing a celebrity. And the architecture is really impressive too. Its beautiful in a classical and almost plain kind of way.
We had fun at the game. Nationals Park was very clean and still felt new even at 14 years old. Its not the prettiest park. Nothing really standout about it. But its nice. Good views all over. We bought nosebleed seats but since the Nats arent having a great season, there were plenty of empty seats so we ended up moving into left field home run territory towards the end of the game. Nelson Cruz hit a home run, too, but more towards centerfield and not our section.
Our plan for the next day was to hit the National Zoo. I had been there as a little kid but had basically zero memory of it. It was hot, but sunny and beautiful. I could tell my daughter was really enjoying it bc she's normally reasonably quiet and has a typical teenager's constant face of being bored out of her mind, no matter what we're doing, but she was smiling and engaging and talking a lot, so I knew she was enjoying it. Zoos are always bittersweet. Tough seeing animals in captivity, but hopefully, by seeing them and their beauty and majesty, it helps people to feel more empathy for them in life and take on a better idealism towards the environment and ecology and preservation and helping the animals still in the wild to thrive.
After the zoo, we decided to go see the stuff at the National Mall. We started near the Capitol Building and walked due west. It was hot and a longer walk than anticipated, but it was nice. The area is so clean and well manicured. All the landscaping and groundskeeping is immaculate. The monuments were impressive and the bustle of the community was evident everywhere. There were kickball and soccer games happening right around the Washington Monument. Lots of joggers ("on your left") and people that looked like they were employed in the city and plenty of other tourists like us too. We got to the Lincoln memorial and enjoyed the shade. It was cool to see the big Abe statue (it was bigger than i'd remembered from seeing it as a kid) and hang on the stairs for a bit. Since it was so hot we decided to ride some Bird scooters back and it was another unexpected highlight of the trip. Those things are fun especially when theres a "pedestrian/bicycle only" area you can tool around in and not worry about being hit by a car.
After checking out the South Lawn of the White House, we headed into town and grabbed some pizza and called it a night.
Next day was allocated for a couple museums (if you dont know, all the Smithsonian National Museum affiliated stuff is free admission, so you can hit a couple in a day if you want and not have to buy a bunch of tickets). We hit the Smithsonian American History Museum first (after a donut breakfast at Donut Run in the Takoma neighborhood of DC). It was a cool museum, but the stuff we really wanted to see- the pop culture stuff like Prince's guitar and Dorothy's Ruby Slippers- was closed for remodeling til the fall. Annoying but just gives us a reason to go back (the Air and Space Museum was also closed and thats something i really want to see, so we're def going back).
After the American History Museum, we hit the Natural History Museum. It was cool as hell. Tons of great animal taxidermies and skeletons and all kinds of great geological exhibits and pieces. Really worth checking out.
For dinner (after a failed attempt to visit Arlington Cemetery- it was closed- that took us all the way past the Pentagon- which was cool and unexpected-and into Virginia) we headed to the Georgetown area. Georgetown was a really cool little spot with cozy buildings and high end shops and neat art everywhere. Wish we had a little more time to spend there, it was really cool. We had a decent dinner and then headed back to the Capitol area to see some of the monuments at night. I'd been told by several people before the trip to see the Korean War Memorial at night so we made our way over there. It was asI'd been told: beautiful and haunting. The statues were incredibly lifelike and lit up amazingly. I admittedly dont know a ton about the Korean War, but the Memorial is something i likely wont forget anytime soon.
We took another scooter ride around the Lincoln Memorial and the reflecting pool and then headed back to the hotel. DC may have been the highlight of the trip, to be honest.
Unexpectedly awesome city that I will be visiting again in the near future.
After a Dunkin Donuts breakfast we jumped on the road to Pittsburgh. It was a pretty long ride and we were all tired and grumpy by the time we got there, so we ate some lunch and headed to the Andy Warhol museum. Im a big Warhol fan for many reasons, but mainly for the way he really challenged what makes art "art". And he was maybe the most prescient artist of all time. He NAILED the idea of personalization for art that is so prevalent these days and the whole "in the future, everyone will have 15 min of fame" is the most accurate prediction ever made and really predicted our social media society. The works in the museum were great, though, notably there were some missing ones on loan to larger collections.
After the museum it was game time. Red Sox at Pirates. We headed into the stadium as soon as it opened at 5:30 to try to meet some players. We got up close to the field and i got to say hello to the radio announcers, Will Fleming and the legendary Joe Castiglione (which was fun for me bc i mostly listen to the games on the app, since i gave up cable a long time ago). Pirates aren't having a great season (neither are the Red Sox for that matter) but their fans showed up. There were a lot of Red Sox fans too, Boston teams always travel well; but the Pittsburgh fans were definitely there and supportive. And the pirates played well. Their pitcher pitched an excellent game. He had great command and mixed it up really well vs an offense that, at least on paper, can do damage. The Sox' pitcher was not as effective and he gave up some big HRs and the Sox lost on my birthday, womp womp. So far, I'm 0-3 lifetime seeing the Red Sox on the road. Not great numbers. Im somehow 3-0 seeing them at Fenway this year, though in a year when they havent been very good.
Weather was amazing and the park was absolutely beautiful. Great, old time style park. Feels very intimate. Feels like a park- lots of grassy areas and greens and in the causeways theres benches and playground areas for kids and giant bobbleheads and amazing views of the city and the river and all the really cool bridges. Food was good too. I had a Chicago-style dog, which is one of my all time favorite styles and, funnily enough, the best ones Ive had, have been in Detroit and Pittsburgh. The one i had at Wrigley Field in Chicago was the worst of the three. PNC jumped into the top 3 in the rankings of the MLB stadiums I've been to.
Updated MLB Stadium Rankings as of 8/18/22
Fenway Park
Oracle Park
PNC Park
Wrigley Field
Citi Field
Yankee Stadium
Comerica Park
Nationals Park
The next day was our last full day of vacation and we agreed we'd just take it easy. We got a diner breakfast in downtown Pittsburgh and then headed East. The plan was always to stop for lunch in Gettysburg, PA, but we didn't expect to spend almost the entire afternoon and early evening there. It was a really neat little town and seeing the sites of the famous battle and of course, the speech, was a cool experience.
Once we were fed and ready to head out, we went on to downtown Philadelphia. Since i knew this was the last night of the trip and we'd want to be super comfy after a long week, I splurged on the hotel and got maybe the coolest spot in Philly. Tons of hip-hop themed decor everywhere and super stylish. We got a 10 course tasting menu dinner at a really chic Japanese place a few blocks from the hotel.
Wish we got to spend a little more time in Philly, but we were all ready to start heading back to New England.
We had one more stop to make and that was in Connecticut to visit my old roommate and great friend, Jeff. Besides being a great multimedia artist, Jeff is one of the most generous people you could possibly meet. We hung with him on his porch for a bit and watched the crowds heading into town for the town's annual oyster festival. We were all set with going to the festival so we headed to the pizza place Jeff works at. We got to chill right in the kitchen with him and the staff and Jeff made us a ridiculous amount of food. A pizza we ate there and this giant, sausage-stuffed sandwich/calzone hybrid that he sent us home with.
There was a loose plan to maybe stop at Mohegan Sun on the way home to break up the still 3hrs of driving, but we elected to just plow straight home. We got home in the early evening, picked up the dog at the boarders, and headed home. We watched "The Great Outdoors"(my daughter had never seen it and it seemed apropos even though our vacation was much different than Chet and Roman's) and got to bed early.
All in all, it was an amazing trip full of inspiration and discovery. Cant wait to make some nice pieces based on what we saw, and cant wait for the next chance to get on the road and see the world.
Comments