Well, it clearly took me MONTHS to wrap up the blog posts on this trip! It was indeed a blast and I got so much footage that was great. I had to extensively cut it back on focus on a few key rides here and there and record recon stops of course! With that, the final blog post of the Pittsburgh trip.
Alright, I’m almost done through all the VLOG posts on my Pittsburgh trip. It was, needless to say, a really eventful trip! Last post I wrote up the 3 part VLOG of day 5, and in this post it’s another 3 part for day 6! Included is the second record recon run and wrapping up all three parts with the arrival of a CSX COKE TRAIN!
A little route map for an idea of the route.
Heading along the north side waterfront.
Hey look at that, a Norfolk Southern train heading across the Ohio River.
Trip Wrap Up
Thursday’s ride…
The finale, riding from Traveler’s Rest to the train station in the rain! First bit of inclement weather of the entire trip!
The day after arriving, I headed out into the city for a day of work. On this day I wanted to try out Gasoline Street Coffee. With a short ride up over the bridge from South Side Flats into the city I arrive at Gasoline Street. One of the excellent things about the South Side Flats, is if you’re commuting into downtown Pittsburgh you could literally walk and beat most commuters into the city. The commute from this area is wildly easy to get into and out of the city.
The week that I was in the city, the weather was absolute perfection every day I was there. I kid you not, perfect temperature, perfect visibility, zero rain (until literally the last few hours while I was departing), zero fog, no smog, it was just spectacular!
Once I cleared the bridge into the city from the South Side Flats I made a kind of zig zag through several blocks, on one I went the wrong way not realizing it was a one way, and eventually passed under tram station shown below, which looked pretty nice and modern. As I was rolling along too there were a ton of police all over this part of the city, which I realized the station was over this way and it all made sense.
As I rolled up to Gasoline Street Coffee, it wasn’t an street nor was it related to gasoline, but there were plenty of private vehicles parked on the literal *public* sidewalk in front of the place. Which, as usual for this sort of behavior, makes for a very unpleasant approach to any type of establishment.
I strolled inside for my morning brew and was greeted by – contrary to the outside – a pleasant hello and a spastic and cool interior! The inside of the place definitely had more of an street feel to it, and overall had a bunch of cool seating, tables, and other amenities. But being the weather was absolute perfection, I opted to have my coffee outside at one of the tables.
After fueling up with caffeine, it was time for the remaining commute – all of about 6-7 minutes – into the downtown office building city core.
Car Free Core? Pedestrian Focused?
As I finished up the last 2 blocks, I realized that these last two blocks were heavily, VERY heavily focused on pedestrian oriented activities. This first one, is this park in between these gleaming cavernous glass lined towers. It’s an open space park where people often sit and eat during the day, or just meet for discussion or whatever else may be going on. I made several visits to this area and it was nice, a great way to get some air and get out of the building environments.
The next space, which is literally just the next block over, is another square but lined with restaurants, bars, and other eating establishments, along with a rim of trees that adds a great aspect to the whole square. Again, just like the other park(square?) I ate here several times during the week and it was rather splendid.
Just for the detail, here’s where the two blocks are in downtown Pittsburgh.
Anyway, watch the video, and see it as I travel through the streets and narrate it all for you!
Pittsburgh Day 5 Part 1 – “Daily Commute” & a stop at Gasoline Alley
Millvale & Attic Records
Later in the day, after all those working hours, I headed back to South Side Flats and then headed out with my pack to go explore Attic Records. Attic Records is just outside of Pittsburgh in a small town called Millvale. Just on the northeast side of Pittsburgh along the north side of the Allegheny River.
This next episode is all about that trip back out of the South Side Flats, across the city core of Pittsburgh, and along the north side trail along the Allegheny River. It’s a stunning route, and one – for those visiting – I highly recommend riding!
Once I rolled into Attic Records, I wished I’d brought another $5 grand to spend on records and a larger pack to carry it all in! Attic is a jack pot of albums! I could have just stayed in this shop checking albums out all day, but alas, I managed to keep it to about an hour of perusing and then purchasing only 2 albums at the time! Just crazy!
Overall though, an absolutely great shop, so if you’re into or getting into vinyl and live around the Pittsburgh area just go ahead and put their address in your “places to go regularly” list!
Pittsburgh Day 5 Part 2 – Attic Records in Millvale! CHECK THEM OUT!
Finally I wrap up day 5 of this trip, with a visit to Government Center Records, Randyland, and The Government Center. Wrapping up record recon mission 2! I’ll leave you to watch the VLOG instead of elaborating however. Enjoy!
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!
Pittsburgh Arrival Day 4 Part 1 – Arriving into Union Station & Initial Explorations.
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.
Pittsburgh Arrival Day 4 Part 2 – Arrived & Exploring the Ohio River “West Wend Bridge”!
Pittsburgh Arrival Day 4 Part 3 – Heading to south Pittsburgh to get some coffee & try to check in!
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!
Pittsburgh Arrival Day 4 Part 4 – Delanie’s & Travelers Rest. You GOTTA check these places out!
Back in April I took a trip to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. It is easily one of the best trips I’ve taken in a few years! Far too many years! Obviously I had to write up the adventure and that dear readers is what you have here, the log of my entire trip to Pittsburgh. I hope you enjoy following along with the adventure!
Along with the trip, which I’ll write details about here on this post and subsequent posts here on Transit Sleuth, another branch of posts will be on Vicious Shred concerning the record shops (Attic Records, etc) and music related peculiarities. So if you’re into the metal, and other varietals of music I partake upon, navigate over to Vicious Shred for a whole host of posts about that.
Day 1 – Departing Seattle via the Empire Builder
Day 1 involved departing Seattle. What did that involve? Well let me tell you!
The very first event involved me biking down from home to downtown Redmond. There I caught the Sound Transit 545 out of Redmond heading to downtown Seattle & King Street Station. The bus arrived timely, I got the bike mounted up and off I went.
Shocker of shocker, as we got into the city there was a back up on 520 coming onto I-5, which is part of traveling on I-5. It’s always been backed up here and likely will always be. If someone is stupid enough to think they’ll resolve this poorly designed mess they don’t understand how cars work – and in that sense I am seriously looking forward to the day I can just on the tram (light rail) Link into the city!
Once I arrived downtown, I didn’t even attempt to ride the 545 all the way across the downtown core. There are two reasons I did got off the bus to travel this last few miles:
The main reason is I like to, as I’ve made it a tradition, to always stop at Monorail Coffee and get a cap before departure. For many – if not most – destinations in the United States it is likely the last time I’ll get a decent cap until returning. The espresso standards in the USA have improved to a degree so it isn’t as frequent I go without as it used to be, but I still don’t trust most cities.
The other reason is I actually like to ride through the city – I love cities, love em’! Some folks don’t get that from me but I see so much more than the mere concrete and fumbling crushed souls of the city and more the wealth generating heartbeat of America that US cities actually are. Albeit they’re severely damaged and have a severe quality of life issue compared to European cities. Largely evident in the vast warped subsidized American socialism experiment gone awry called “the suburbs”. But hey, they’re holding together the country in spite of all that!
Anarchist Jurisdiction
As the “Dear Leader” designated our poor fair destroyed obliterated city of Seattle, it is indeed destroyed y’all! Nobody come to Seattle, look at all that smoke and fire and burning, nobody is left! It’s all zombies and those lost in the riots. /s
Comedy aside, the ride through Seattle was rather pleasant. The roll – emphasis on roll because it takes almost no energy to pedal downhill from Monorail Coffee down to the train station – to King Street Station was smooth and effortless.
King Street Station
I arrived, got my bike tagged for the trip and headed off to the baggage car to hand off my bike. The only two things I brought with me was my Mission Workshop ARKIV Backpack and the bike (bounce back tothis post for details on why she’s named “PDX Orange”).
Tragedy Struck!
Chubby DOWN!!! You’ll have to watch the video for that bit of tragedy (time point @ the tragedy), it was already too much to write about the remnants of the destroyed city of Seattle! So with that bit of narration lagniappe, enjoy the video.
My Pittsburgh Adventure day 1 departing Seattle via King Street Station on the Empire Builder!
Day 2 – Eating on the Empire Builder
Day 2 can be summarized as eating day. There isn’t a lot to see or do on day 2, so it’s 3 meals and complete uninterrupted relaxation. In all seriousness it is one of my favorite days of the trip – even with the somewhat boring scenery – because I just do nothing. Maybe read, but mostly just thinking and introspecting against a repeating scenery. With that, I detail some of day 2 via VLOG for you dear reader!
Train Life, Day 2 on the Empire Builder from Seattle to Chicago, en route to Pittsburgh.
Day 3 – Empire Builder Transfer to Capitol Limited in Chicago
When I got into day 3, Chicago was the central action of the day. I needed to arrive on time or close to on time in order to make my connection to the Capitol Limited. The Capitol Limited route runs from Chicago to Washington DC. It makes a bunch of stops but my stop would be around 5:23am in the morning in Pittsburgh. If I had my preference, I’d have take another train that would have had me arriving in Pittsburgh at a more reasonable hour, but this being America we have a severe lack of transportation options between major cities!
The great thing about – in my humble opinion – coming into Chicago is getting into the urban fabric and watching the urban core and its skyscrapers start to rise out of nothing. If you’re privy, you get to see a lot of history as you roll into the city too. If you find that kind of thing fascinating Chicago is a city worth looking into.
In this episode I wrap up things by showing the path and process – for my brave fellow cyclists out there – of getting your bike stowed in Union Station. If you’re in the sleeper or 1st class like I was, you get to hang out in the awesome lounge at Chicago but you need to stow your bike in the meantime.
Pittsburgh Adventure Day 3 – Part 1 – Arrival in Chicago & wondering around Union Station.
In the 2nd part of day 3, transferring in Chicago I provide a tour of the 1st Class Lounge and then wander aimlessly around Chicago for a short while. Then I show boarding, which is a bit of an adventure in fumbling since I have a bike. Even though this is actually an easy process, you need to stay on top of things in order to make sure the bike does end up where you end up. Follow along in the VLOG to see more of the chaotic fun as I wrap up the Chicago transfer to the Capitol Limited!
Pittsburgh Adventure Day 3 – Part 2 – Transferring in Chicago & wondering outside Union Station.
That’s it for the Empire Builder part of the trip, in my next post I’ll delve into arrival day in Pittsburgh and the ongoing adventures!
What’s a “record recon”? Well, borrowing a little shorthand military speak, recon is reconnaissance, which is a word that means:
An inspection or exploration of an area, especially one made to gather military information.
The act or operation of reconnoitering; preliminary examination or survey.
An examination or survey of a region in reference to its general geological character.
That seemed like the perfect vibe for me in exploring new record stores. Since I was heading to Pittsburgh recently the decision seemed an obvious one to make. New territory to explore, new collections to add items to, Pittsburgh it would be!
With any reconnoitering of an area one has to do some research. What area would it be, how would the reconnoiter be done, what tactics and what strategy would be used? With all those questions, the first up was what areas would it cover.
My initial search gave me these results. With a little more research I took Upstreet Records off the list since I realized it’s a recording studio, not a record shop. The Amazing Books & Records and The Exchange stores seemed to be a chain – possibly local – but deprioritized just a little because of that. In addition The Amazing Books & Records didn’t seem focused enough that it would have a substantial collection, which push it down on the order of visit list that I’d be unlikely to get into one of the stores.
Another thing I did was read the reviews and try to figure out which ones would have a selection that would most likely lead me to picking up new albums. The two that seemed the most promising were The Attic Store, with second place coming in between Jerry’s Records and The Government Center.
With that, the ordered list of “must visit” to “if I can get there” came out like this.
The Attic Store
The Government Center (higher only because of proximity to where I was staying while in Pittsburgh)
Jerry’s Records
The Exchange (another proximity reason, one was in south end just down the street from my hotel.)
Get Hip Records
Pleasant Dream Records
The_412_Vinyl
The Exchange (the one further out by Jerry’s)
Amazing Books & Records
Out of that I created the following missions based on where I intended to ride, various trails and routes existed, and where the stops would coincide with other things I wanted to do. As always, I aim for that insane level of efficiency per trip that is thought mythical in ole’ America!
☑︎ Mission 1: South Side Flats & Schenley Park Area Record Recon
Jerry’s Records
The Exchange (near Jerry’s)
The Exchange (near Traveler’s Rest where I’m staying)
☑︎ Mission 2: Millvale & Government Center Record Recon
The Attic Store
The Government Center
☑︎ Mission 3: Chateu & Lower Lawrenceville Record Recon
Get Hip Records
The_412_Vinyl
So in the coming few weeks I’ll have mission recon reports along with the overall trip reports of the Pittsburgh trip. So stay tuned, and I’ll refer back to this post to see if I succeed on my record reconnaissance missions! Wish me luck! 🤘🏻
Transit Sleuth 