Type 2 Diabetic. Cyclist Flâneur.   Coffeeneur.    Errandoneur
A bike / map geek with a gadget obsession and a high-viz fetish.

Saturday, January 19, 2013

Murals and Dinosaurs and 55F

1/19/13 240# 35M
What a great day for Pittsburgh in January. It started off a bit cold but ended up at 55F.


Started at the Bastille, and as we rounded the turn at the Carnegia Science Center we stopped to photograph their dinosaur:



Riding through Lawrenceville on our way out to the EEFC we were surprised to encounter this, and while taking pictures we were pleased to meet QR and get to talk bike plans for 2013:




Riding through East Liberty we encountered this beautiful steel sculpture, Joy of Life, along with the cathedral, by University of Pittsburgh professor Virgil Cantini from 1969. Although he believed that the humanoids are celebrating the Joy Of Life, and some others have speculated that the figures are thrilled to be anatomically correct, those of us with a grounded historical perspective understand that they are probably celebrating the NY Mets' first World Series victory.






Turning onto Bennett Street we saw these two murals on a house, and we understood we were in a very different part of town.






We think we've seen a lot of murals in Pittsburgh, and probably all the murals in Pittsburgh, but we keep stumbling across more, such as these at Kelly and Sterrett Streets.







We found the East End Food Coop, and it's even more Whole-Foodsy than Whole Foods, and they've got a very cool mural, too:



We rode around looking for the green-faced mural we were searching for, and we found the elephant graffiti we've become familiar with ever since finding it under the Bloomfield Bridge, this is across the street from Construction Junction:



After a few false starts and misleading tips, we found the mural we were looking for at 7575 Thomas Blvd, by Atomik Art:



We rode back via Dallas and Forbes, stopped in Squirrel Hill for soup, then stopped in Oakland to score another dinosaur at WQED on Fifth Ave:




We descended down Junction Hollow and took the Jail Trail inbound, exited at Grant Street and took a photo of this Dinosaur at the Art Institute:




Next we rode over to PPG Place to look for three dinosaurs, and as luck would have it they were all moved out of their normal places to make room for the ice skating rink and we found them all in one group.









We crossed to the North Shore and rode out to Washington's Landing to score one more dinosaur, this one on the western tip of the island right by the bicycle switchback bridge:



A lot of pictures and a bit of bicycling on a blue, 55F day, a very nice afternoon.

1 comment:

  1. This is so cool! I'm in Northern Virginia and working with our local bike advocacy group to develop some historical marker rides -- now I wish we had murals and dinosaurs! Have you documented these rides in a way that others can follow your path and enjoy them too? I have lots of friends here who are Pittsburgh transplants and I'd love to point them to your trails when they visit back home!

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