Month: July 2023

Ragtime

We saw Lyric Theatre‘s production of Ragtime today; it was the opening, so the audience was filled with people carrying flowers to give to cast members after the play. And the cast members deserved those flowers – the performance was terrific, and I was especially blown away by the actors who played Sarah (Ayana Brewer) and Coalhouse (J. Demetrius Olivier).

There are four more performances between now and August 5; if you’re in the San Jose area, go!

Beyond that, it was mostly a day to catch up with things like the paper mail. There were two checks to take care of – a small ($10 or so) refund from State Farm and a four-figure rebate for our heat pump installation from SVCE. I deposited them at my credit union and was surprised to discover that the funds from the rebate check were immediately available for withdrawal but that the $10 from the State Farm check wouldn’t be available until Tuesday. Seems backwards to me.

Speaking of backwards, Delta has been sending us notifications all day about changes to our flights from Pittsburgh to Atlanta to San Jose, which is interesting and annoying since we’d cancelled them and gotten refunds issued. I guess we would have been stuck in Pittsburgh or Atlanta if we’d accepted their original offer to reschedule our travel. Thanks, Southwest!

Southwest to the rescue!

We set the alarm early this morning because we had to be out of our stateroom by 7:30am. A few seconds after it rang, Diane looked at her email and yelled “our flight is cancelled!”.

Delta had, indeed, cancelled our Pittsburgh-Atlanta flight; they’d rebooked us, but we’d have to spend more than seven hours at Pittsburgh airport, wouldn’t get home until after 10pm Pacific, would have a very short connection in Atlanta, and would be downgraded to coach with no indication of a refund. I was not happy.

I looked at alternate flights on Delta – they were all for tomorrow, we’d still be downgraded, and we would definitely not get credit for the downgrade. I was not happy.

Neither United nor American had any good options, so I tried Southwest. They had seats available at better times than our original Delta schedule – no first class, of course, but Business Select was available which gave us head-of-the-line boarding. I grabbed it and tried to cancel the Delta flights online. No dice.

We took the ship’s bus to the airport. My first stop was the Delta “Sky Priority” counter. The agent there was able to cancel our flights and issue a refund to our credit card; it took about five minutes.

We had a real Pittsburgh lunch at the airport; we ate at Primanti Bros.. Having fries in the middle of a sandwich seems like a strange idea, but it tasted good; I’d go back.

Having A1-A15 boarding passes on Southwest is a definite advantage. Most people use it to sit in the first couple of rows; we used it to sit in the two-seat exit row (no middle seat!) on both flights. The first flight (on a 737 MAX 8) had a two-seat row on both sides of the plane; the second flight (on a 737-700) only had one.

The flights were smooth; we left Midway about 30 minutes late, but we still got home sooner than we would have on our original itinerary.

Delta even credited us with 7500 miles as an apology.

Thanks, Southwest – I’m sure glad I didn’t have to consider taking Spirit to get us home!

Happy Moon Day!

We reached Pittsburgh while we were sleeping and awoke to a view of the Duquesne Incline and the river.

Our morning excursion took us to the Andy Warhol Museum; they’d arranged a guided tour for us which was a great advantage over just exploring independently.

There were many interesting images to enjoy, most of which are easy to find on the web. I hadn’t seen Warhol’s “Silver Clouds” before, though.

The current special exhibit is devoted to Warhol and the Velvet Underground and Nico. The cover of the album included a banana sticker over a pink banana; Warhol had taken the banana image from this ashtray, distributed to help convince people that Cavendish bananas were as good as the Gros Michel cultivar that was becoming uneconomical to grow due to Panama Disease.

We decided to walk back to the ship (about a mile) and stopped for lunch at the North Shore Tavern across the street from PNC Park (home of the Pirates). It was good, but the service could have been better and faster.

This afternoon, we went on the “Pittsburgh City Experience”, a guided bus tour of Pittsburgh. Our first stop was St. Stanislaus Kostka Church in the Strip District, one of the six Shrines of Pittsburgh.

After the visit to the church and a short time to wander around the Strip District, we got back on the bus to drive through a few neighborhoods and the campus of the University of Pittsburgh, where we drove around the Cathedral of Learning and the Heinz Chapel.

Our next stop was the Duquesne Incline on Mt. Washington. We’d ridden it on our last trip to Pittsburgh in 2018, so we chose to stay at the top station and enjoy the view instead of riding it again.

We drove back to the ship; as we got off, our guide pointed out the Tribute to Children statue featuring Mr. Rogers near our ship, so we walked over to take a closer look.

As I type this, there’s a big thunderstorm raging outside; my phone keeps vibrating to pass on storm alerts. The latest is a flash flood alert; I guess being on a ship is an advantage when there’s flooding in the area!

A day of surprises

There were no port calls scheduled for today; we left Marietta about 10pm last night and are due in at Pittsburgh around 12:30am tomorrow. The scenery along the banks was mostly pretty, though it was very clear that we were in coal country.

I was surprised when the American Heritage pulled alongside the shore at Moundsville, West Virginia soon after breakfast and lowered its gangplank; a couple of the crew got off and started talking with people who seemed to be waiting for us, including a gentleman in a shirt and tie whose name tag read “Rick Healy, City Manager”.

The Captain was up on the top deck using a PA to talk with them; I asked him what was up, and he said that ACL was considering adding Moundsville to its extended Ohio River itinerary and he was there to see what kinds of docking facilities might be necessary for them to add. David Dorsey, our expert speaker, said that Moundsville had a few attractions, including the Fostoria Glass Museum and a very large Indian mound (hence the name).

The parley continued for about an hour, then we pushed off and resumed our trip up the Ohio.

We got another surprise after lunch, when we returned to our room and found that the bathroom floor was quite wet. And then we discovered that the toilet was running. I got the assistant hotel manager to come up but he couldn’t turn it off; by the time they’d gotten an engineer to the room, the water had overflowed and soaked our room’s carpet.

We are now in our third stateroom on this cruise. Each has been on a different deck (the higher you go, the higher the price), but they’ve all been identical in size and furnishings; the higher decks have had a bit less engine noise, though.

We’re going through the last lock of the trip now (there are 19 on the Ohio); Pittsburgh awaits!