As I’ve posted before, Bill and I enjoy driving up to Pittsburgh to catch the Cubs games when they are in town. This trip, we found some free time to enjoy Pittsburgh.

We rode the Duquesne incline and got a beautiful view of the city. Then we went to a needlepoint store (I have the most patient husband in the world). We checked out Needle Point Breeze which was a very cute store with a big selection of handpainted canvases. They had a beautiful selection of bags and purses which I could not resist. We also had time to check out Church Brew Works, a microbrewery in a restored church. The beer was tasty, and they offered a sampler so Bill tried them all. I ate my share of pierogies, which you get IN the ballpark. Pierogies, a Pittsburgh tradition, are pockets full of cheese and potato yummy goodness. You can find them coast to coast in your frozen food aisle (Mrs. T’s Pierogies). I do believe that PNC park has the best food of any ballpark I’ve been too. This year, we noticed they had gourmet food stations which is neat because they can easily change to different kinds of food. Sunday was Irish Day at the ball park and one of the stations was serving corn beef and cabbage.

As for the baseball, we saw a win and a loss on Saturday and Sunday, respectively. I would have liked to see the Cubs go into the break with a win but it was not meant to be. We got some autographs. My theory was that the players who slept in on Sunday were more friendly than the players who got to the ballpark early and there did seem to be a correlation. Bill’s theory was that the players arriving later would be in more of a hurry and would be less likely to sign, and that was true for the coaches, but didn’t follow for the players. Can you tell we had a lot of free time to analyze players’ autograph behavior.

All in all, it was a beautiful, relaxing weekend. We may even visit Pittsburgh when the Cubs aren’t in town!