Sunday: The morning was spent exploring Indiana PA again since I enjoyed the town so much. It was nice to see it during the day and sunlight rather than after work. Definitely a cute town with all your basic amenities. Still really enjoy the college town atmosphere. Its now on my short list of places I would consider living on a long term basis. Still not sure how it would feel in January shoveling snow... but I also used to say I couldnt handle heat and I did 5 summers in Phoenix.
The afternoon was spent exploring somewhere I didnt know was a type of place that existing nor would I have ever imagined going to. Nearby there is abandoned Prison/Sanatorium. It was originally a tuberculosis hospital, then turned into a Sanatorium and finally was a prison before being abandoned in 2013. When I say abandoned I really mean people grabbed the valuable things and just.... left. Theres still furniture in almost every room, trash and broken glass in places and just overall a super creepy vibe. There are close to 2 dozen buildings in total and they were all at 1 point connected with underground tunnels for
easy navigation during the winter. There are buildings for recreation and food prep, office administration and of course many jail cells. The facility only opens once a month for exploration/photography and only a few dozen people were there making it even weirder. Encountering another visitor was a shock as well. They do keep track of everyone who enters and ensures they exit so no one is left trapped once they leave for the evening. What a bizarre experience.
Friday: A day trip to explore Pittsburgh which is about and hour and a half away. The geography of the city is quite hilly (not San Francisco but remember Ive been in the southeast lately) and there are 2 rivers. What I notice about city planning is mountains and water make it very difficult and inconvenient so you get chaotic roads. To say the roads were difficult was an understatement- not traffic, just bizarre layout. I did end up crossing a bridge 3 times because I kept accidentally getting on the interstate going backwards instead of exiting for example. It was a pretty bridge though! Pittsburgh has a super awesome library which has these really weird glass floors between the levels.
Definitely felt like you were going to fall to the next level standing on them- and even on the edges you could see or drop something all the way down. Not sure what the design is supposed to accomplish
In Pittsburgh I checked out the Conservatory which had some amazing displays. They had a theme going where they were fictional paintings. It was really neat to see the creations in real life of what someone had painted from their imagination and lead to some cool artistry. There was also a desert plant room which of course reminded me of Arizona and made me realize I hadnt seen a cactus in a long time. I was surprised by how humid the desert room was still kept though- I thought it would be dry like the plants enjoy. The humidity in the Hawaii room though was insane. The plants just seemed so foreign to anything else Ive experienced. Definitely a cool tropical vibe. I was also able to check out a local park which had an evening farmers market going on and drive by the Pirates baseball stadium. Its now on my bucket list to see all 30 MLB parks
(coordinating to see a game seems too ambitious plus then Id have to go back to Miami...). Lastly the main attraction of Pittsburgh was to go to Trader Joes and get some much desired food!
Saturday: A super rainy day... There do have to be a lot of rainy days to keep everything looking so green I suppose. Since it was such terrible weather it seemed like a good time to explore the stores and amenities of Indiana. So the morning was spent inside a European style coffee house called Amadeus Cafe with a terrific Latte. I also particularly enjoyed exploring the very random discount store called Ollies.
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