Day 6 - in Pittsburgh

August 14, 2021

It was a butt-resting day hanging out in Pittsburgh and getting ready for the next episode of the the tour.  We, my son and I, hung around a bit in the morning trying to figure out how to copy all the music on my iPhone to his iPhone.  It’s a simple task but Apple doesn’t make it easy.  We eventually got it done.

We ran some errands such as going to REI for some backpacking meals and to Aldo for some instant oatmeal.  Going into downtown Pittsburgh is great.  There is so much to see and do.  We stopped off at Mindful Brewing for a beer and lunch.  The sweet potato and black been burger was excellent.  The beers were good too.  I had a King Size: Klerk which is a milk stout with peanuts.  Delicious at 8% and 30 IBUs.  I followed that with a Lambda IPA, a citrusy one, at 7% and 80 IBUs.  A friend of Dan’s from work joined up and we had lots of fun.

Next up was doing work on the bikes.  He had some maintenance stuff to do on his BMW and I repacked some of the stuff on mine and adjusted the air in my seat cushion.  He check the air pressure in my tires and got them on spec.  I did a batch of laundry and worked at making sure all my electronics had a full charge.  I am traveling with two iPhones (one as just an iPod), my iPad, my Kindle, and the Cardo, the communication device that attaches to my helmet.  Through its speakers in the helmet I can hear the music from my phone as well as the directions from Google maps.  It also lets Dan and I chat while riding.  The Siri commands are also supposed to work but I haven’t got that totally figured out.  I should be able to “Hey, Siri, take notes” and then voice dictate information about the ride while I am riding.  I’ll get that figured out eventually.

While we were out on errands, I took some random photos.

Dan had to run by his office to take care of something and, what do you know, there is a brewery just a few blocks away.  We each had an IPA.  His is shown in the background on this image.  It’s one of those cloudy New England style beers.  Mine was an imperial and quite good.  I really like breweries that locate in industrial neighborhoods like this one did.

Now to do the final packing.  We plan to head out early.  The destination is somewhere along the coast of Lake Ontario in New York.