Spring break travels: My first experience in the Ohio River Valley

Spring break came last week, and I had the customary urge to travel.

A neighbor from the Pittsburgh area, Weirton, WV, to be exact, asked me if I would like to go visit the area for a couple days and check out Pittsburgh.

So we secured a place to stay, packed a bag, and drove overnight.

A great experience indeed, and with as much beauty as there was coming out of a tunnel to see the endless bridges connecting the shining buildings of Pittsburgh, encircled by the Ohio River, to the outlying areas, one would be led to believe that such a brash name as the "Steel City" was figurative, or inappropriate altogether.


Allow me to digress.

Pittsburgh in itself is a shining metropolis that houses the reigning Super Bowl champions, distinguished universities such as the University of Pittsburgh, Carnegie Mellon University,Dusquesne University, and various other enterprises and communities that make it both an economic and cultural hub.

I was enthralled by the city, despite coming from a massive metropolis like Chicago, Pittsburgh had a charm that really captivated me.

In the outlying areas, though, the colossus gave way to a vast landscape of granite: quarry walls bleeding pewter into the skyline and vice versa, skeletal trees and massive steel mill buildings, windows into the industrial revolution around the river valley during America's production boom, and its subsequent threat of extinction within today's global economy.

I plan on researching the topic more, and will keep posting as I reflect and research.