Washington, DC in Pictures

My next journey took me to Washington, D.C. I have been here many times now so I will have different pictures later. There are just some of my best pictures from my first trip there.

Sports Mural

 

Here is an awesome Pittsburgh Sports mural that used to be on a downtown Pittsburgh building. It features Mario Lemieux, Roberto Clemente, Joe Greene, Jack Lambert, and Bill Mazeroski.

This building was torn down sometime in 1998.

New York City Trip #1

The first time I was in New York City was Thanksgiving 1996. I went with my cousin for a few days. She always wanted to watch the Macy's parade and I just wanted to visit the Big Apple.

We managed to see all we could in the 3 days there; The Statue of Liberty, Empire State Building, Central Park, Rockefeller Center, the parade(check out the picture of Deidre Hall in the parade), and even saw the World Trade Center before the attacks. I did not have the chance to see them again. I even remember going to the Statue of Liberty without airport type security before boarding the ferry.

I will post more stories and pictures of New York when I come to it again later.

Here are a few pictures.

The Trip From Hell

I have enjoyed each vacation that I was on except for one. This one, as I call it, is the trip from hell.

It was 2 long, awful weeks with my friend's family to Ocean City and Rehobeth Beach in July, 1988. That was not the bad part, however. Spending 2 weeks in a cramped trailer with 2 toddlers that fought and whined constantly, my friend's stuck-up, snob bitch of a cousin, and the 10 days of rain made this the official "trip from Hell."

The rain ruined most of the good plans that his parents had planned so the time had to be spent in that God awful trailer. Then this campground had some foul-smelling odor and the closest bathroom was about a half mile walk from where the trailer was set up.

One other thing to make matters worse was when the youngest sister decided to put her hands over her dad's eyes while he was driving and almost cause a catastrophe. How he kept his composure and didn't crash into anything is beyond me.

I have never been camping since that trip nor will I ever go camping again. That was my first time and it was definately my last. That is not how I want to spend 14 days away from home. Give me a hotel room with a comfy bed, hot showers, clean bathroom, and the big city to explore anyday......

The funniest part of it all was they asked me to join them the following summer. Yeah, right!!!! No way was it shame on me twice!

King's Dominion

The next place on my travels takes me to King's Dominion in Richmond, VA. I am not big on amusement parks, but I did enjoy this one, but that was about 20 years ago. I would never go there now.

The highlights there were the replica Eiffel Tower and the Super Slide. This slide was enormous, nothing like the ones at the local fair.

Niagara Falls

The third place that I visited was Niagara Falls. I was first there in 1984 and I lost track after the 9th visit. The Canadian falls is much nicer and the Canadian side is also much cleaner.

The best part of visiting Niagara Falls is walking over the Rainbow Bridge from New York into Canada. The whole thing of walking to another country is awesome.

I have yet to go on the Maid of the Mist boat tour. Maybe next time I will have to give that a try. My favorite thing there was going to the top of Skylon Tower and seeing the panoramic view of the falls. That is where 2 of these pictures were taken from. The third picture was taken from a nature trail that brushes up against the falls on the American side.

Sea World

The second place that I visited was to Sea World in Aurora, OH. This trip was in the summer of 1981 and it was organized by my church. It was a great place for a kid and it probably still is, too bad it's closed now.

One of my pet peeves is when I ask someone about a vacation and what they did there and I get the response, "I don't remember!". Well, I was there 26 years ago and I still remember feeding a dolphin. They had this machine that took quarters and you would get a fish resembling sardines that the dolphins would eat. They came out of the water and took it so gently from the people and they seemed to smile.

Also, we saw this awesome show with Shamu. He would jump out of the water and do flips then splash the first few rows. Then he would jump thru rings and would let a worker ride on his back for a few minutes.

Sorry, I only have 1 picture to post, every picture my mom had was of Shamu.

First Baseball Game

The first time I ever left the Johnstown area was to Pittsburgh for my first Pirates game. According to the back of the pictures, it was July 6, 1980. That would make me 7 years old.

I can actually remember a lot from that day. The game went 20 innings, the Pirates played the Chicago Cubs, Omar Moreno had the game winning hit, I saw my hero at the time, Willie Stargell play, our seats were in left-center field, and Bert Blyleven started the game for the Pirates. I remember thinking that Three Rivers Stadium was enormous, but what 7 year old wouldn't?

Now, 27 years later, I am not even much of a Pirates fan. But a first baseball game is very special to a kid and I have never forgotten it.

By the way, it's not appropriate to laugh at a 7 year old's pictures......