Wednesday, June 22, 2016
Fancy music halls, and PhD hoodings, and robotic bagpipers, and light sabers. Oh my!
Showing posts with label pgh. Show all posts
Showing posts with label pgh. Show all posts
Pittsburgh Visit
Wednesday, January 13, 2016
This is a boring wedding planning blog post. Unless you enjoy photos of exotic birds and pretty Pennsylvania countryside.
For the winter holidays, we went back to Pennsylvania and stuffed in some wedding venue shopping time. We visited two places, completely and totally different from each other: the National Aviary and a farm.
The constraints we were working with were not insane: (1) Pittsburgh-area, (2) ceremony/reception not need copious extra decorations, (3) not a banquet hall, (4) venue does weddings regularly, and (5) in a particular price range [which is difficult to articulate because every venue does a different pricing approach for the necessities]. This nonsense gets tricky when you live 2,600 miles away!
The National Aviary
Weddings at the Aviary happen after hours, giving you private access to most of the exhibits. You can even have a penguin or other bird stop by during the reception. They have an outdoor rose garden, and numerous indoor spaces available. The space next to the penguins smells a little birdy, but the main reception area in the atrium does not. One million weddings appear to take place at the Aviary ([1], [2], [3], [4], [5], [6], [7], [8], [9]), which means that at the very least the staff probably knows what they're doing. The reviews seem to support this. The Aviary is a pretty nifty idea at a reasonable-ish price, although, with weddings, everyone's 'reasonable price' seems to be different. It's a bit tricky to deal with. Everything's a bit tricky.
Horizon View Farms
We loved Horizon View Farms out in the Laurel Highlands, too. We'd been out near there before, for our first backpacking experience or frequently camping in Ohiopyle. It really is a lovely area, and this particular farm had all kinds of options: a pond, a hill with an overlook, a pine forest, an arena barn, and a cozy rustic barn with built-in dance floor. All of which photograph fantastically.However, once we looked into the cost of renting and transporting tables/chairs/whatever, we realized the actual price for this venue was about triple what they posted. I mean, $1,700 for a very necessary toilet trailer + transporting other necessities into the middle of nowhere. It adds up fast.
But just look how pretty! Even in the middle of December!
Camping: Ohiopyle & Kentuck Knob
Wednesday, September 30, 2015
One last camping trip before we leave Pennsylvania. Ohiopyle State Park, because it's close by and has lots of stuff to do, even in the rain. Which we had a lot of! We stayed at one of the Kentuck Campground walk-in sites (#108), which was a looooong walk from the parking lot, but a short walk to the bathrooms. When booking those walk-in sites, definitely be conscious of how close it is to the parking, you could be hauling all your gear up to a quarter mile!
A friend of mine's only experience with camping was a rather grueling backpacking trip years ago, and J and I figured we'd show that camping doesn't have to be miserable. Even in the rain. We set up a tarp over the picnic table, went on small hikes, ate lunch under trees, and watched waterfalls. We ambled around the Ferncliff Trails which allowed us to watch for whitewater kayakkers coming down the river, and to see Ohiopyle Falls across from the visitor center. We would've tried Meadow Run Trail or Beech Trail (near Kentuck Campground), too, but the rain sort of made that an undesirable option.
The rain also made a third campfire on our second morning an absolute necessity. How else are you gonna finish off those s'mores?
Oh, and we also saw Frank Llyod Wright's Kentick Knob and sculpture meadow. J and I first visited Frank Lloyd Wright's Fallingwater (also super near to Ohiopyle) six months into our relationship. So capping both the beginning and the end of our Pennsylvania time with Frank Lloyd Wright seemed appropriate.
We spent the remainder of the trip using Usonian as a synonym for plebeian.
