Playing Tourist With the Parentals (Part 1)

Today, after a little more unpacking and a good night's sleep, we decided to play the roll of tourist for a while and headed to the Carnegie Natural History Museum. First up: The Hall of Minerals and Gems.  Although the below picture makes it look like there are an infinite amount of display cases, it is just a good game of smoke and mirrors.  If you look down the pathway you can see my reflection.

Reading up on how fossils are processed in the PaleoLab once they come to the museum.  Had we gone during the week, we would have been able to see them in action.  Doesn't he look studious?

Below we have Dippy the Dinosaur, the unofficial mascot of the museum.  In 1898, Andrew Carnegie, the Pittsburgh Steel tycoon, decided he needed to own the fossils of the "most colossal animal" ever found.  Turns out that claim had been made after finding a single bone and after weeks of searching nothing else was found.  Paleontologists were not discouraged and began to search the surrounding area to see what they could unearth.  Their hard work finally paid off and the bones of this large creature were sent back to Pittsburgh in 130 boxes.  The new species of dinosaur was named Diplodocus carnegii after the man who funded the project.  Because its body was so long, a new room needed to be built in the museum; the new hall and Dippy made their debut in 1907.  To learn more check out his scrapbook.

My parents took a ridiculous picture with a T-Rex with my sister when they were in California so we decided to do the same with the Triceratops.  Doesn't this plant eater look terrifying?

After we left the dinosaur room we ended up in the Hall of Ice Age Animals.  At first I thought this guy was put together from left over bones, but it turns out it is the actual skeleton of an Elk.

That afternoon we all took a nap before heading out to the strip for dinner.  One quintessential Pittsburgh restaurant is Permanti Brothers.  I had taken my mother there before I moved a couple summers ago and she had requested to go back. 

Italian bread, tomatoes, coleslaw, fries, cheese meat and more bread.  One of the strangest things I have come to find about PGH is their obsession with french fries.  Seriously, you can get them on your salad and no one bats an eye.

With a few more hours of day light we hopped in the car and did a mini driving tour.  We headed up to Mt. Washington because it would be a good way to get a birds eye view of the city and give a little context.  This area, originally known as Coal Hill, was the spot where the city's first coal was mined.