The convertible saga continues…

She remains at the garage getting her heart transplant (aka Coyote engine), and parts keep arriving on our doorstep, and Todd continues to peruse Facebook Marketplace as he always does and it’s almost always about cars Mustangs and car – things. Several weeks ago he showed me a pair of seats – what do you think?

Um, nice?

I’m thinking about replacing the seats in the convertible.

Uh, okay….. (clearly I am not as excited about these things as I should be.)

These particular seats – pulled from a 2023 GT, all leather, are BRAND NEW he said. And the guy is asking $1000. This is a really good deal. So he’s asking me if I think he should do it. What’s the catch?

They’re in Pittsburgh. Wanna take a drive and make a weekend out of it? Everyone knows I love a road trip. I did my usual – a casual dive into what to do in Pittsburgh and made a list in what I call my “travel log.” The first, and last, time I was in Pittsburgh was years ago for the state bowling tournament freezing my ass off in bowling alleys at the crack of dawn and otherwise dodging torrential downpours. (I wrote about it here: https://thetarachronicles.com/2016/05/18/destination-pittsburgh/ )

This time the only time constraint was to meet the seller’s wife at their storage facility at a specified hour. Now, the nutcase in me who watches way too many documentaries said to Todd about halfway there, “what if they’re luring us to some remote storage place to murder us?” He scoffed. Then I said, I can’t believe his wife agreed to meet a complete stranger at their storage facility. I would never. (Again – too many documentaries.)

Anyway, the route took us off the turnpike and onto the Lincoln Highway, which was a beautiful and scenic two-lane road through small towns and mountains. I jotted down notes in my travel log of places I wanted to photograph on our way back.

We arrived at the storage facility, which was located right off a main road, and the wife was waiting in her car. She punched in her code at the gate and we drove slowly behind her through what felt like a maze – rows and rows of units – until we arrived in the last row near the end and there was literally no one else there. We got out of our cars, exchanging pleasantries, and when she turned to unlock the door I looked at her waist to see if she was packing.

Todd helped her lift the garage door and inside was a car (not a Mustang – WTF) and the cleanest garage/storage unit I have ever seen. The car belongs to one of her daughters who is overseas. Husband couldn’t meet us because he’s a commercial pilot who was flying out west or to Hawaii or something. Niiiiice.

Anyhoo, spoiler: we loaded these carefully wrapped seats into the back of our Explorer, she gave us these two Mustang pillows and a throw, Todd handed her the envelope of cash, and we didn’t get murdered. Probably because of the little old lady (whose stink eye I could see clearly through her windshield) in charge of the facility who was driving around VERY SLOWLY and VERY CLOSELY past us as we chatted.

We had about a 45-minute drive to the hotel – a Holiday Inn Express on Green Tree Road still considered Pittsburgh but was over a bridge from the city proper. We arrived to our room, a two-room suite with a king bed that I’m positive I didn’t book, but it was really nice.

There was an Eagles game that evening that Todd wanted to watch somewhere and my research led me to Tom’s Watch Bar, boasting over 80 TVs and a great menu, where I suggested we go. He might have said he really didn’t want to drive into the city tonight and I might have ignored him and said we have to go there. (Really, there was mac and cheese on the menu and I really wanted that.)

So we drove in. The bar was literally steps away from the Pirates Stadium and it turns out – there’s a Pirates game! And literally hundreds of people in the streets, some of which were closed to traffic and most of the lots/parking garages said “full.” The GPS didn’t know which roads were closed and that one of the bridges was closed to cars and at this point Todd is hangry and this is why I didn’t want to drive in here tonight and I haven’t eaten anything and I’M feeling like a shit for wanting mac and cheese.

He said he’d rather not do this and now we’re just trying to get out. My first thought was, let’s go to the Grand Concourse, to that bar we went to years ago. I figured it’s far enough away to avoid the crowds and, I hoped, easy to park (it was). Twenty minutes later we arrived at The Gandy Dancer Saloon and sat at the bar. There was a duo performing Yacht Club music, quite well, I might add.

The female bartender was great but was stuck with two guys who hardly seemed to know what they were doing, bumbling around looking confused and dropping shit and then one of them poured an entire martini in the sink (I guess he made a mistake but lord what a waste!). Todd ordered prime rib sliders and I had fried shiitake dumplings and the guy put it all in front of us and walked away. No flatware, no napkins, nothin’. When the female bartender checked on us I asked her for it and she looked mortified and pissed. (Food was great! Highly recommend. With flatware.)

I drove us back to the hotel, proudly noting my great sense of direction. We ended up at the bar next to the hotel which was fairly empty but……….. setting up for karaoke.