On Wednes­day, Whee­z­ley (the sig­nif­i­cant other) and I left Erie behind and schlepped back down to Pitts­burgh (pass­ing many more dead deer along the way). Again, not much to see until we got to Pitts­burgh. Seri­ously, there aren’t even gas sta­tions by the side of the inter­state, just deer stands and the occa­sional barn/farm.

But we reached Pitts­burgh soon enough. The first thing I noticed was the houses — they all seemed to be perched on top of hills right next to each other. I guess build­ing space is tight. After a cou­ple miles of that, we rounded a bend and reached the down­town area where the three rivers converge.

Wow. It was really beau­ti­ful. Lots of bridges, lots of shops, lots of restau­rants. A very vibrant down­town. And clean. Very, very clean. Not like most down­towns that I’ve been to.

We missed our exit and ended up cir­cling through down­town (which also has lots of con­struc­tion) and then going back across one of the bridges. The bridges were a lit­tle con­fus­ing. A cab dri­ver told Whee­z­ley that Pitts­burgh has more bridges than any other city in the world. I don’t know about that, but there were a lot of them — and some of them only went one way, which added to our confusion.

But we even­tu­ally found the hotel and parked (by which point, Whee­z­ley was growl­ing and demand­ing a drink and a cig­a­rette). We grabbed our suit­cases and lugged them a cou­ple blocks to the hotel.

Ah, the hotel. A point of con­tention for many folks through­out the convention. I was dis­ap­pointed in the hotel. We had to cool our heels in the lobby for an hour and a half until we could check in, at which time I was informed that I wasn’t get­ting the room with two beds that I’d requested. (Whee­z­ley snores like a lum­ber­jack and tosses and turns like he’s on a ship).

You see, the hotel was under­go­ing exten­sive ren­o­va­tions, even though it was going to host an event for 2,000 peo­ple for five days. You’d think the hotel would plan around that. But no. Even though I reserved my room a cou­ple days after the con­ven­tion reg­is­tra­tion opened last year, I was told I couldn’t have a room with two beds because there weren’t any avail­able. I asked why I was able to reserve the room and was told there was a snafu with the reg­is­tra­tion sys­tem. I also asked a series of other ques­tions about the rooms and why they weren’t available.

“Yeah, that’s not hap­pen­ing” was the over­all response I got to most of my ques­tions. I was told I could either go to another hotel or be stuck with what they had left. But hey, they were still going to honor the con­ven­tion rate for the hotel rooms. Well, thank heav­ens for small favors.

So I took what they had and man­aged to get a cot for the room. I had also asked for a room on a low floor and ended up stay­ing on the 24th floor — the high­est floor in the hotel. Shak­ing head.

But hey, I did have a great view of the three rivers, Heinz Field, and the rest of the down­town area, as you can see with the above picture.

Over­all, the hotel just seemed too small to host an event the size of RT. Espe­cially the bar area — it was tiny. Any­one who’s been to RT or the annual RWA con­fer­ence will tell you that a large, roomy, well-stocked bar area is a major key to suc­cess. :joecool:

Up next: More RT stuff.