My Favorite Places, Old and New with Elyssa!

Last night, Thursday, we landed in Pittsburgh after two pretty good flights! We drove our rental car to Misty's house and got there, after a few wrong turns, at about 10:30pm! Misty, Thomas, Elyssa, Jackson and McKenna were still up but barely!!! We received our much needed hugs and talked just a little bit and then everyone went to bed! It felt so good to see them all again! If felt so good to hear their voices, to see their drowsy smiles and to see that they are doing great!

It also felt so good to lay down and close my eyes! But for some reason sleep evaded me for quite a long time! We also wanted to make sure we got up in time to see Jackson off to school, so we needed to be up by 6:45am. I would love to say we made it, but we missed him by 5 minutes! We were able to talk with McKenna before she left at 8:00am. Then it was Elyssa's turn to leave. She told us to come down to the University of Pittsburgh at 1pm and she would take us on a tour! Yeah! We were ready to go then!

After the kids left for school, Misty suggested Cracker Barrel for breakfast! My old favorite place to eat almost anywhere but Oregon and Washington, because we don't have any!  Has anyone ever ate at a Cracker Barrel? As you travel around the US be sure to look for them! We enjoyed the breakfast so much and visiting with Misty. It is always nice to catch up with her life, schooling, and doings with Thomas and the grandchildren. She loves photography, we can tell because she lights up as she talks about it! She has many pictures beautifully displayed on her walls!  Thank you Misty!!!

We took Misty back to her house and then left for downtown Pittsburgh to the University of Pittsburgh to meet Elyssa at 1pm in front of the Cathedral for Learning!

First we went into this beautiful Heinz Chapel! We were lucky enough to be able to go inside because there was going to be a wedding here in 5 minutes!

This is the inside of the Chapel! The stained glass windows were so very beautiful! Elyssa said we were lucky because normally the doors are closed!

After the Chapel, we went over to the Cathedral of Learning!!!This is a place for the students to hang out and study and/or take classes! This is my new favorite place!

Inside looked like Hogwarts Castle!

Can't you just see Harry Potter, Ron and Hermoine discussing their strategies for fighting evil???

Can you not visualize the Owls swooping down to deliver the mail???

And then I come back to reality, that our beautiful grandaughter Elyssa is taking us on a tour of the Cathedral,

which is part of her world, University of Pittsburgh...I wouldn't change a thing!!!