Friday September 2

Today I did far and away the most interesting thing so far: the Carrie Blast Furnaces.

First, the ride there took me through a section of town populated primarily by black people -

That was about a 45 minute ride.

I signed up for a 2-hour tour of the Carrie Blast Furnaces, where iron was extracted from iron ore (prior to being combined with strengthening agents to form steel), between 1907 and 1878. It’s now a national monument.

It’s a massive piece of land on the banks of the Monongahela with RR tracks, furnaces & accompanying equipment.

The scale of the equipment is astonishing. I couldn’t get a good pic of the whole shebang, it is just too big.

From the outside:

The tour guide actually worked there (as an industrial engineer, then executive), and had amazingly vivid descriptions of what it was like, and really interesting opinions about the state of the steel industry.

from the inside:

Ask me about it; too much to write..

So then I crossed the river and rode the ‘Great Allegheny Passage’ to the south side for lunch at Caralyn’s recommended Hofbraeu House.

And on to the library for the afternoon’s Smilla. Didn’t finish, as I thought I would, ‘cause the lib closed at 5. This was bad not only ,’cause I didn’t get to finish, but also ‘cause it was 85 outside. Anyway here’s where I am - a pretty good page, have a read.

After making Adrienne’s ‘Quesadilla with the same shit’ for dinner I did my laundry. Here’s the laundry room downstairs.

that is all.