Tunnelin'

 When I was a kid and my mother's family still lived in the Pittsburgh area, we would obviously go to visit on occasion, which meant a lot of driving through that city. If you've never been to Pittsburgh, it's a very hilly place, and when it came time to build expressways through the region, this involved the construction of tunnels, some of which are quite long indeed. There are two very well-known tunnels around Pittsburgh, one through the Fort Pitt hill and another through Squirrel Hill. The video below takes you from the Fort Pitt Tunnel all the way to the Squirrel Hill one.

We made this drive a lot when I was young. My grandmother and my uncle lived in one of the eastern suburbs, which made this stretch of road a necessary jaunt when we went downtown and back again. Later, when my sister was in college in Pittsburgh, we'd still make this drive occasionally. Those tunnels were always very exciting. We drove through the Squirrel Hill tunnel a lot more often than we did the Fort Pitt one, but that Fort Pitt Tunnel is very exciting if you're northbound, because as soon as you emerge from the tunnel and into the light, there before you is the entire city of Pittsburgh, just across the Monongahela River. Then, if you're on your way to Monroeville and points east, you cross the river and turn right, following the Monongahela a bit longer before the river turns away to the south. Eventually you get to the tunnel under Squirrel Hill.

Pittsburgh is an exciting town to drive through, as this video shows. I like that there are videos like this! I've no idea when I'll get to Pittsburgh again, but for now, this video brings up some happy memories.