After the grand trip across a vast expanse of the United States, I was finally approaching Pittsburgh! I’d been looking forward to visiting Pittsburgh for years now, so I was STOKED!

The day started at around 5am, as I pondered my arrival and the logistics of the situation on the train. I had some commentary, which I added in the VLOG. So be sure to check that out.

Then arrival in Pittsburgh. This image is from the train as we crossed the river.

In the VLOG you get to see this some, but lets talk about the station in Pittsburgh. For the first thing to experience coming into the city, it is a major let down. It reflects horribly on the United States as a whole – as does our passenger rail in general – but this was an embarrassment of riches right here. The station is in what I’d consider the basement of what used to be the train station. The train station itself however is a bunch of apartments or condos, and the grand entrance is now just the entrance to those apartments. So the grand station that used to exist is now a basement with apartments – which you can’t really walk around – there are signs warning you not to, on top of that basement.

Overall, it’s kind of an insult to Americans to have taken a grand station of this nature, dumped the station into the basement, and stuck a few arbitrarily built – and likely very inefficient apartments in the once grand station.

It’s now kind of just a dump. It made me sad. But I digress, the adventure in Pittsburgh was just beginning and I wasn’t going to let the embarrassment of a station ruin my trip!

Once arrived and finally detrained and out of the station, the mess that it was, I made my way out into the streets of Pittsburgh for an exploratory bike ride around the city. This became an absolutely stellar first experience in the city and more than made up for the dumpy station.

In this video I’ve got relive maps guiding the way so you can see exactly where I went, along with some stellar photos I took of the city. I rode up onto a bridge, through a kind of messed up, stinky, car-dependent part of the city so I could get these pictures and ALMOST DIED TWICE! I point that out in the video too, so if you are ever there, dear readers, be wary of the western bridge over the Ohio River! It’s got a sketchy approach on both side! Watch these next two episodes for that part of the adventure.

Finally, after all that exploration – from 5:30am to about 7:45am – I finally make my way form the north side of Pittsburgh over the the Travelers Rest, where I’d be staying for the week. I wrap up the day one VLOGs with the final check in, checking out Travelers Rest, and I show you the accommodations I’ve picked up for the stay!