On the road again........
We left Franklin yesterday morning (7/23) only 15 minutes behind our planned 0500 departure. That was our first success of the day.


The travel went smoothly until an hour into the trip when Abby announced an urgent bathroom need. So we stopped at Edens Plaza for you Chicago types. We made it through the city and didn't have any other trouble until northwest Indiana when Abby announced a different emergency. This time we handed her a bag and she had about 85% success containing her emergency. Off the road, back on the road, and not long after Katherine had a similar emergency with 100% success in containment......however that left us only one more plastic bag!
Luckily once we got out of Indiana everyone felt better and the rest of the trip was smooth sailing! We listened to music, listened to an audio book, ate lunch at a small diner......no more reading in the car though! Our car hit 10,000 miles in Ohio.


And 9 hours and 38 minutes of driving time later, we were in monroeville! Woo hoo!



We met joe, Brenda, and the babies for dinner and had a great time. The babies slept through our meal, giving us plenty of time to talk with Joe and Brenda.....perhaps too much, Abby sat with Joe and might have told him more than he ever wanted to know.......about everything! They stopped by our hotel briefly so everyone could have a chance to hold the babies, who then decided that they wanted to eat too, so they went home to eat and we went to bed. Phew! We all slept like rocks and it felt so good!

We woke up this morning and had a leisurely breakfast at the hotel. We left about 915 to head into downtown Pittsburgh.


First stop was the Carnegie Science Center, which gave us free admission with our Milwaukee museum membership! Score! We explored a submarine, played with robots, climbed a rock wall, and much more!








Then we took a subway ride into downtown. We strolled around, visiting a farmers market for a lunch of pineapple Popsicle and cookies, and found our way to Point Park at the joining of the 3 rivers. Here Chris had a surprise in store. Today is our 15th wedding anniversary, and we had agreed, no gifts.
But he brought 2 balloons and 3 jars of bubbles. He and the girls blew up the balloons and then the girls blew bubbles. (If you were at our wedding you might remember that our first dance was to 'tiny Bubbles'.) It was incredibly sweet!


We then got back on the train to go to the Incline! We could have ridden all the way there, but in true Geraghty fashion, we got off and had a'forced march' across a bridge to our final destination.
The girls weren't thrilled with the idea of more walking, but the views were incredible and it was a Perfect, gorgeous day! We had a few minutes to kill before we met Joe and Brenda, so we stopped for milkshakes for more lunch!


We rode the incline up the hill and took in amazing views of Pittsburgh.






The babies were not so impressed. But we certainly were! Pittsburgh is a beautiful city!


After the incline we rode the subway back to our car at the science center and drove back to the hotel. A quick rest stop before grabbing some pizzas and meeting Joe and Brenda at a local park for a picnic and play time. They even brought wine, transported in breast milk containers, to celebrate our anniversary! A fun time was had by all and there may have been tears from more than one in our party (cough, me, cough) having to say goodbye! We are so happy they let us crash their Pittsburgh party and joined us in being touristy. And we are even more glad that they are in the states for a few years so our visits can be more frequent!

Back at the hotel we did a load of laundry (remember Abby's success rate yesterday) and baths and reading and now it's off to bed. We leave early tomorrow to head to Front Royal, Va.......by way of Antietam.



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