Destination: Color Me Rad 5K in Pittsburgh

My sister and I made a lightning run to Pittsburgh to participate in the "Color Me Rad 5K" over the weekend.  We left at about 2 p.m. on Friday and drove to the Country Inns and Suites in Washington, PA. The run was originally scheduled for the North Side of Pittsburgh, but so many people signed up to do it that they had to change it to the Washington Fairgrounds.

Nancy ready to head to "Color Me Rad".

The folks at Country Inns and Suites were very friendly and the room was nice. When we asked for directions to "packet pick-up", we found out the spot was in downtown Pittsburgh, about 50 minutes away (Oiy!) We headed out, but called the organizers on our way.  When we explained our situation they said, "Don't run the whole way up here! Just pick up the packets tomorrow." Awesome.

We were famished so we headed for dinner at the Cracker Barrel. Then it was time to relax in our comfy room and have some girl time before lights out and 6:30 wake-up for the Saturday race.

It was only a seven minute drive from our hotel to the fairgournds. After we parked we got our packets and looked around.  We saw the "Color Bomb Squad" volunteers getting their directions on how to bomb us with brightly colored cornstarch powder. CMR DJ's were already getting the crowd pumped up with music. At the starting line CMR workers were shooting colored powder and free t-shirts from a gun into the crowd. We were in the 5th starting wave.  There looked to be about 100 people or more in each wave.

Starting the waves of participants...all day long!

This was a "fun race".  There were no clocks timing anyone and most people didn't run the entire time. Nancy and I walked. I'm glad because running would have made it end too soon.   The Color Bomb Squad did their job well and painted our white t-shirts, shorts, hats and socks with a rainbow of color. A few of the colors were mixed with water to give us some cool down stations on a hot day. "Flo-photo" photographers were stationed throughout the course to get pictures of the fun. When we finished, we received our own packets of color to bomb people finishing after us.

Sensational Sisters

It was a fun way to end our summer and now we have the souvenirs of tie dyed shirts, shorts, hats and socks to remember our big, colorful, outdoor party in Pittsburgh!

Destination: WGW Weekend Day 3 at PSU

Day three (Saturday) started it at 9 a.m. with an hour long walk to the football stadium.  Then we headed for the cute little coffee shop for some more tea, muffins and scones. Yum. After getting cleaned up, we piled into the cars and headed for Mill Hall.  We went to visit Wanda's parents, brother and niece.  We spent many happy hours on the Yearick family farm in our college days and it was great to see everyone again.

At the family farm with Wanda's dad.

After a delicious homemade dessert, it was off to the Original Italian Pizza so the out-of-towners could have a fix of OIP pizza and subs. Then we headed for LHU and took a long walk around campus and reminisced.  We had to stop for a moment of silence at the spot where the TKE fraternity house recently burned down. After a stop at our old dorm and a walk to look at the beautiful new student housing  suites we were ready to  head back to State College.

Sadness at the spot where TKE used to stand.

Saturday night would be a late dinner at Allen Street Grill.  This is a really nice restaurant that is on the second floor above the Corner Room. Since we were all still really full from our late lunch at OIP, most of us opted for salads.  Mine was an oriental Ahi Tuna salad and it was delicious. It was pretty late when we finished dinner, so we headed back to the hotel to hang out together and talk. The next day would be a big travel day for the out-of-town folks and we needed some rest.

Waiting for a table at Allen St. Grill.

The next morning we got showered and dressed and went for breakfast at The Corner Room.  They have a nice Sunday morning buffet.  My hubby was brave a second time and joined all of us.  We recounted all our escapades for his entertainment.

Bob with us at the Corner Room.

Now it was time to say goodbye and make our plans to get together next year.  The destination may be Pittsburgh..or Savannah.  It all depends on future circumstances.  One thing is certain.  We will be getting together because the roomie weekend makes the summer complete!

Destination: WGW Weekend at PSU Day 2

Day 2 (Friday) of our fun roomie weekend started at about 9 a.m.  We girls need our exercise so we can eat our way through the three nights we are together. A one hour walk around the PSU campus fit the bill.  Not everyone loves to walk, so a few stayed back and took advantage of Days Inn's nice gym and pool. The walk featured a trip past the famous Penn State Creamery.  It was too early for us to get ice cream, although we did think about getting some for breakfast.  We opted for some Chai Tea at a nearby coffed shop instead. Karen said it was the best she ever tasted.  I'm a straight tea kinda gal myself. That was delicious too.


Ready for our limo ride!

After a really good lunch at Panera Bread, it was time to board the stretch limo from Curry Limosine  for a stylish ride to my favorite hangout, Seven Mountains Wine Cellars. Cheryl thought we were getting an airport type limo (a van).  Boy was she surprised. First we did a tasting, then bought a few bottles of our favorites and sat outside for a leisurely afternoon relax. There we met Mary Beth and Steve who were staying at our hotel.  We made plans to meet them later that evening for some dancing.

All of us at Seven Mountains Wine Cellars.

With the winemaker

Next was a tour of the winemaking area.  I've seen it many times, but my roomies seemed very interested and Brandon gave a great tour. Scott the winemaker was so busy he only had time to pose for a brief picture before we headed back to the limo for our ride home. We did some "limo dancing" and singing until Jeff pulled up to our hotel. We kept the party going in our rooms and my hubby Bob even stopped by for a few minutes after work. He is a brave man!

Doing some "limo dancing".

Next it was off to Spatz Cafe for some unique and yummy food. I got some kind of Creole casserole with shrimp, sausage and corn. Now off to a yuppy type bar called Inferno for an after dinner drink.  When our waitress came to serve us, it was a girl I used to teach with.  It was so nice to see her I gave her a big hug. Inferno was a nice place to sit and sip, but now it was time for our annual dance party so we headed for the Shandygaff.  This place has been a PSU landmark since 1848.  Hard to believe but true.  I think maybe some of the furniture from 1848 is still in there! We definitely burned off some of our supper calories by dancing until about midnight. The nice thing about the Shandygaff is the 20 somethings tolerate us "seasoned veterans" with much more grace than most other nightspots. Finally we went back to decompress at Mad Mex for a few minutes before bed.

Karen and I at Shandygaff

Check in tomorrow for a trip down memory lane....

Destination: WGW Weekend at PSU Day 1

My roommate reunion was so much fun!  Day one started around 11:30 a.m at the Days Inn where we met and stayed for 3 nights. All of us were there except for Denise, who had the Odyssy of the never ending plane flights.  She had to make two connections to get to PSU and one was late of course.  We decided on lunch at The Tavern.  It has just recently started to serve lunch.  I love the Tavern because you always get a great meal for a reasonable price. It was wonderful to catch up with my girls.  I hadn't seen most of them since last summer.

Kerri (Wanda's friend) Karen and Wanda at The Tavern.

After lunch we were able to check in to the hotel and get ready to meet Denise at the airport.  Cheryl and I stayed at the hotel and held things down while the rest went in search of Denise.  Soon she was with us and the real fun could begin. Gifts were exchanged and plans were made for dinner.

Cheryl gets a "disposable boyfriend"!

Denise gives us all boca clips to keep our towels on the beach chair.

We decided to head to Cafe 210 West. We opted for sandwiches, salads, cold beer or a nice glass of wine. We headed to some local watering holes for an after dinner drink but Denise didn't bring her ID from the hotel and we were shut down! This hadn't happened to us in many years, but I guess in a college town they card everyone. Lucky for us, Mad Mex, the restaurant at our hotel was lively so we just socialized there until it was time for bed. We needed our sleep. On the schedule for day 2 was a ride in a stretch limo and some wine tasting!

Stay tuned tomorrow for day 2....

Destination: Roommate Reunion

The roomies at Mad Mex

Very soon my college roommates and I will converge on State College for our yearly "Wives Gone Wild" reunion. Many years ago (I'm not going to tell you exactly how many, but Madonna was a newcomer) seven of us shared a house at Lock Haven University. I don't remember much about what I studied that year, but I do remember that we all had a blast. Over the years we got together when we could. Usually we never had all of us together at one time.

In 1999, one of our roomies, Wanda, suffered a benign brain tumor and faced surgery to remove it. She decided to have a "tumor party" before she went under the knife. (Classic Wanda) Since then we have all made it a priority to get together once a year. This year we decided to bring some happiness back to Happy Valley. We will be spending three nights together and I can't wait!



Wanda, Laurie, Denise

We have plans (as usual) to enjoy good food, good drink and good company. One thing I am really looking forward to is a limo ride to Seven Mountains Winer Cellars to do a tasting and a tour. This is somewhere I love to go and I wanted to share it with my girls.

Some other plans include eating at some nice restaurants, dancing at the Shandygaff (where the young ones are very nice to us seasoned veterans) and wing night at Tussey Mountain. I'll be tweeting my trip so if you would like to follow along look me up @Adair62

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Pittsburgh On The Cheap: Day 4

Day four in Pittsburgh started with Marla heading to a meeting.  While she did that, I started our lunch of broccoli and noodle casserole that she wanted to try.

We cooked together when she got home and it turned out to be delicious.  After lunch, we headed for the Pittsburgh Zoo.  We had not been here together since she was three.  It was fun to take a leisurely trip to the zoo on a Monday.  There were no crowds and we could linger and watch the animals as long as we wanted.  It was especially fun to watch the Mama elephants with the young ones.  They seemed to enjoy watching us as much as we liked watching them.  Not so the primates.  They spent a lot of time hiding from us humans or looking the other way!

 

After the zoo, it was time for me to head back to Central PA.  Marla drove me to the bus station at the Convention center.  This time Megabus was right on time.  My hubby had downloaded the megabus app so he knew my exact ETA.  It was good to get back home.  It was a great visit in Pittsburgh for not a lot of $$!

Costs for Day 4
Zoo tickets for two $28.00
Parking for Megabus $3.00
Bus home $15.00

Total for day 4:  $46.00

Grand Total for the trip: $196.36

Avg. Cost per night:  $65.45

My (Cheap) Trip to Pittsburgh Day 3

Day one and two of my Pittsburgh trip were pretty discounted.  Day three was a little more expensive, but not by much :)  Sunday started with a long walk on 5th Avenue. Marla was sleeping in and I needed to MOVE. I walked to Mellon Park This park was filled with gardens and sculptures. There was a band playing in the park and lots of people were enjoying their Sunday morning there.

I walked back to a local coffee shop and got an iced tea. It's just what I needed after a walk on a hot day. Now it was time to do some of the weekend chores, so we headed for groceries. It was lunch time so we split a maranara and mozzarella pizza. We got ingredients to make a yummy broccoli and noodle casserole for Monday's lunch. Next we met my college roommate and some of Marla's friends in Southside for dinner at Local Bar and Kitchen. I split a buffalo chicken wing salad with Wanda (my roomie). Marla, Tony and Sarah split buffalo chicken dip. I don't know about the dip, but the salad was delicious and we didn't even need any dressing. Marla got a drink called a Yuinserita. It's a margarita with a bottle of beer in it. Sounds gross but tasted good. I found Frambois (rasberry beer) on the menu which made me happy. Wanda and her husband Curtis pulled the "pay the tab while I went to the restroom" trick. Thanks so much guys. I really appreciate your generosity! More savings for the cheap trip to Pittsburgh.

Since my roomie paid the tab, we went to a bar down the street and I bought her a drink. Then we headed to Love Yogurt so the younger crowd could get a treat. They had all kinds of yogurt flavors and toppings. After a stop at Starbucks to hang out, we said goodbye to Wanda and Curtis and got to see Sarah's cute apartment and her pet cat. It wasn't dark yet and we were feeling a little bloated from all the food and drink, so we stopped off at Schenely Park for a walk. It was a beautiful place to watch the sun set over the Pittsburgh skyline. On the way home we stopped for a Red Box movie.

Day 3

Tea at coffee shop $2.06

Lunch at the grocery store $7.90

Groceries $46.45

Parking in Southside $4.00

Love Yogurt $19.45

Drinks for Wanda and I $9.00

Big Box Movie $1.28

Total Cost for day 3 $90.14

Check in for day four and a complete total tomorrow.

My (Cheap) Trip to Pittsburgh Day 2

Yesterday, I posted my first day in Pittsburgh.  It was pretty inexpensive.  Day two was even cheaper.
On Saturday Marla had to work. She works with young kids on an Americor program. On this day, they were tie-dyeing t-shirts so I tagged along to help. It turned out to be a highlight of the trip and very inexpensive. We set up shop on the sidewalk outside the center. The kids dropped in from 1 until 3 p.m. I helped by giving directions when it got a little crowded and with general clean-up. The people (adults and kids) were friendly and they really seemed to enjoy tie-dyeing the shirts. We even had a few adults try it when we were finishing up. We ate our subs for lunch while we worked.

Marla worked until 7 p.m. so I took the bus downtown to try out a self guided tour I had downloaded onto my phone from Robert Morris University. Are you apprehensive about riding city busses? You don't have to be with Hop Stop. This app will make navigating any bus, subway or train in any major city easier to navigate. All you have to do is type in your starting and ending destination and you will know exactly where to get the bus and exactly where to depart. The tour was great. I got a lot of background information on some of the major buildings in the city. The only downside was I couldn't go inside any of the buildings because it was Saturday and they were closed

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That's me in the reflection of the PPG building. Right after this picture was taken, I stopped at Starbucks in Market Square for a snack and a bottle of water. After I finished the tour, Marla picked me up near Duquesne University. We headed back to her place and changed for dinner. We went to a place called Beernutz. It was a local bar and restaurant. It had the best hamburger I ever had (and I've had a lot of burgers). Marla's roommate worked here and gave us her meal discount so some more savings for my trip on the cheap. Yay!

Total cost for day 2 in Pittsburgh:
Soda for lunch $1.00
Snack in Market Square $3.80
Supper at Beernutz $14.62

Total: $19.42

Check in tomorrow for day three!

My (Cheap) Trip to Pittsburgh Day 1

How cheap can you do a trip to Pittsburgh?  Does three nights for under $200.00 sound like a good deal?  Here's how I did it last weekend.  First of all, my daughter lives there, so I was able to stay at her apartment.  That was a big savings right off the bat. Even the cheapest hotels in the Pittsburgh area are about $70.00 per night. I saved at least $210.00 by staying with a relative. I arrived late Friday afternoon via Megabus. There is a non-stop route that runs from near my house to Pittsburgh at least twice a day.  My round trip ticket cost $30.00.  I didn't have the headache of driving into the city, dealing with traffic or the bad weather.  I had three hours to myself to do some reading and studying.  Megabus is always clean and comfortable.  Sometimes it runs late as it did on Friday afternoon, but I wasn't on a schedule, so no big deal.  All I did was text my daughter when we were about there and I had a ride waiting for me when I stepped off the bus.  Let the fun begin!

We were both hungry so we headed to Squirrel Hill, a Pittsburgh neighborhood, to get something to eat. We stumbled onto an antique car show just starting in the street.  We spent some time looking at the cars and browsing in a vintage shop called Avalon.

We headed to Uncle Sam's sub shop. I had a mediterranean sub and Marla had a cheesesteak.  Of course it wouldn't be Pittsburgh unless you had a huge mound of fries on top of your sandwich!

We each ate half of our subs and decided to keep the other half for our lunch the next day.  That gave me incentive to finish all my fries (uh-oh healthy diet blown).  We dropped my luggage at Marla's apartment and met her boyfriend, Tony, for gelato at Mercurio's in Shadyside.  This place has delicious gelato and some tasty oven fired pizza.

The total cost for day 1 in Pittsburgh
Megabus: $15.00
Parking in Squirell Hill: $2.00
Squirell Hill car show and browsing and Avalon $0.00!
Subs at Uncle Sam's $17.44
Gelato at Mercurio's $6.36

Total $40.80

Day one was fun.  Is it possible to have a cheaper day than $42.00?  Check back tomorrow and see...

 

Planning The Trip is Half The Fun

Going on a trip is fun, but planning a trip can be almost as much fun.  Trip planning is even more fun since you can search the Internet and use mobile apps to find fun things to do and good deals on hotels, restaurants, car rentals etc.

I am working on planning three trips right now.  This weekend, I am going to visit my daughter in Pittsburgh.  Just for fun, I am going to see how much fun we can have on the cheap. I am going to travel by Megabus.  They go nonstop from my hometown twice a day.  A round trip Megabus ride to Pittsburgh is only $30.00.  I can't drive that cheaply. I am working on things to do and places to eat that won't break the bank. Stay tuned to see how I did.

Hubby and I are planning a winter trip to Key West.  I am really excited about this one!  We decided to fly to Miami and drive Highway One.  We hear that everyone should drive into Key West via Highway One at least once.  We are flying back directly from Key West.  We will be taking part in a Food and Wine Festival held there each winter.  Our winery owning friends are reserving room at the Southernmost Hotel.  We will be going to lots of activities; a beach party, a Key West Stroll and maybe a sunset catamaran cruise.  Can't Wait!

The third trip is to Washington, PA for the Color Me Rad 5K.  This is a fun event to raise money for Ronald McDonald House. Participants wear white.  While they run or walk the course, the Bomb Squad throws colored paint powder made from corn starch.  When you are done, you look like a rainbow.  A big colorful finale is planned at the finish line.  My sister and I have decided to participate and my daughter plans to be a bomb squad member.

These trips are going to keep us busy planning! Looking forward to them is just as much fun as taking them. I'll keep you posted on all the fun.  If you have been on any of these trips before, let me know what you did.  Maybe I can add that to my list of things to do.