Back from Pittsburgh

I had a good time over Thanksgiving weekend. My Brother, Mom and Stepdad drove to Pittsburgh to see my Grandpa, Aunt and Cousin. My family is a little odd sometimes. There are a lot of health issues and financial issues in the family and my poor Grandpa worries about everyone and my aunt is in denial of most of the problems to point where you have to tiptoe around the real issues and pretend nothing is wrong. It makes for a lot of uneasy conversations. It's sad when my immediate family is the most healthy part of the family tree. Having said that, I did enjoy seeing everybody again and I wish that I lived closer than 5 hours away.

Friday the men in the family went the Western Pa. sports museum which was very cool. Being an avid Pittsburgh sports fan it was like heaven being around so much memorabilia. I almost cried when they showed highlights of the 70's steelers and pirates on the big screen. I also enjoyed learning more about the history of the negro baseball leagues.

The next day we went to the crash site of flight 93 which went down on 9/11. It was interesting to see the area and very sad as well. They have a makeshift memorial at the site until they figure out what to build for the permanent reminder. My favorite part was a set of park benches with the names of each of the passenger and crew members. It's hard to imagine what would have happened had that plane made it to the final destination. When you look at where it crashed you couldn't have asked for a more isolated location. I am not a conspiracy theorist but it makes me wonder if we didn't shoot it down on purpose.

Now I am back to the real world so to speak and looking forward to my next vacation days which won't likely be until Christmas. It's hard to believe it's almost December. I guess I have to start Christmas shopping.