World Tour of Pennsyltuckey

[Blurmore]

I used to live there so yes I can call it that. We made the annual trip to Beaver County PA for the Dunham family reunion.

But on the way....

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We stopped at the Penn State Creamery. Not really on our way but totally worth it. Earlier this year on "National Ice Cream Day" I caught a PBS special on what we all scream for, and they mentioned that Penn State was the first (and possibly only) college in the country with a masters program in Ice Cream science. I was hooked. Always an AG school they are apparently also famous for being the site of the first artificial cow insemenation! YEAH DAIRY SCIENCE! Best Ice Cream EVER, well worth the drive.

From there we traveled 3.5 hours to Darlington PA and caught a Polo match.

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I loved catching the horses with no feet on the ground, LOOK MA NO FEET!

We all had fun at the reunion, a day of games, an auction, talent shows, and plenty of home cooked food.

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The day after we left my kids our Kids with Grandma for the night and my wife and I had an evening alone in Pittsburgh.

The views from the hotel room.

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Pittsburgh was a depressing as I remember it from my childhood, but we did get to hit the Warhol.

I had read about 'Silver Clouds' when the Warhol opened, and it was more wonderful than I imagined. I wouldn't normally take a camera to an art gallery, but Warhol is different, he was an appropriation artist and documented everything in his world. Photography is allowed (amd I would almost venture to say encouraged) on all the floors displaying his work but not on the floors where special exhibits are displayed.

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the betrayal

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There was a silkscreen workshop which explained the process of Warhol's most famous works of blown out celebrities, and a gallery of 'portraits' he snapped at parties and on sets. One of the funniest was a snap of the Governator, himself, and Grace Jones circa 1984. It looked like he wanted to snap a shot of Jones and the Governator and the big guy invited him into the photo, with Arnold beaming a pre political grin and his huge arm around him Andy did not look enthused.

Monday morning my mom dropped off the boys and we met a couple of friends at the zoo. I really like the Pittsburgh Zoo, well worth the money,

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not half bad for 1/50th of a sec @ 200mm handheld

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I'd be grumpy about the fountain thing too

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Baboons are just really cool

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I really dug the moon jellies

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and the Lion fish.


Phew...that was quite a trip....

Thanks for looking, and any comments or critiques are welcome and appreciated.

[DJ-S1]

Wow, that shot of the orangutans is phenominal! :clap

[DoctorIt]

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very cool shot! great trip/story, thanks for sharing!

[saurora]

What??? No shots of the ICE CREAM??? Must have gobbled it down too quickly!! Love the shot of the orangutans...just precious. Nicely done. :D

[mbz]

Nice zoo pictures.

[marlof]

That sounds like a fun trip, and esp. the image with the balloon and movement really expresses that fun.

[Swartzy]

Beaver County??? I didn't think anyone knew where that was. I grew up in Beaver, went to Beaver High School.....small world. Haven't been back that way for about 10 years or so. Nice captures of the area. Sounds like a fun trip :thumb

[ian408]

moon jellies :thumb