Pittsburgh to Cincinnati

We had a 290 mile (460 km) drive to do today, but we still wanted to see more of Pittsburgh! So we decided to do some more touring before hitting the highway.

Ruth had read about The Cathedral of Learning in Pittsburgh. This enormous 42 story building at the University of Pittsburgh's main campus was built between 1926 and 1937. It's the tallest educational building in the Western Hemisphere. And what a building it is!

Ruth, a fountain, and the Cathedral of Learning building.

The commons room at the Cathedral of Learning.

There are 29 different "Nationality Rooms". These working classrooms are decorated and designed to honor the different cultures that had an influence on shaping the city of Pittsburgh. The rooms were completed between 1938 and 1957 and are still used today as actual classrooms. Most of them were busy with classes while we were there, but we did find three of them empty...

The Chinese room.

The Russian room.

The Norwegian room.

You can tour all of the Nationality Rooms online at www.nationalityrooms.pitt.edu

(Edit...a little correction about the Nationality Rooms:  I would call your attention to a small error in your article. “The rooms were completed between 1938 and 1957” refers only to original 18 rooms before I came on as Director in 1965. Since then I have coordinated 10 rooms: Israel Heritage, African Heritage, Armenian, Austrian, Japanese, Indian, Ukrainian, Turkish, Swiss and Welsh.  Now you know!)

Across from the Cathedral of Learning is the Heinz Memorial Chapel.

Built between 1934 and 1938 with funds provided by H. J. Heinz, the chapel is nondenominational. Considering it took only four years to build, it is an amazing structure. Two of the stained glass windows are among the tallest in the world, at 72 feet.

The interior of the chapel.

But we had to get going. It was another beautiful day, high of about 80F (27C) and sunny. Look at the blue sky in the pictures above. Gorgeous!

Leaving Pennsylvania, we had to go through a short section of West Virginia.

And into Ohio. Did you know that Ohio is the "swing state"? No, not the swingers state...the swing state. You might not know that there is an American election going on, but if you're in Ohio you sure know it! Apparently whoever wins Ohio, wins the whole thing.

We stopped at a rest place for lunch.

Lots of farmland along the way.

Oh! Almost forgot to mention. We filled up the little blue car in Zanesville, Ohio with gas priced at $3.07 per gallon (about $0.81 per litre!). That's almost as cheap as Mexico!

We pulled up to our couchsurfing host Christina's place in Cincinnati at around 6:30 pm after doing about 290 miles (460 kms). We've been having lots of great conversation this evening with Christina, hence the late blog post! 

Pittsburgh to Cincinnati.