All dressed up with someplace to go

It's here! It's here!

Last week, our custom-made bike rack for the office arrived. I can't wait for it to be installed.

 The Dressed-up ride:

I don't often break out the pearls. They come out when we're going someplace fancy: the Symphony, brunch at the Ritz Carlton, etc...
Mind you, I inherited these pearls. I still consider them my MILs. I don't claim ownership; I'm not worthy to consider such an exquisite item 'mine'.
At any rate, the whole office was needed to work at our annual Women On The Move luncheon. It takes place at a local high-end restaurant or golf club and many local socialites break out the giant hats, the press shows up. Not my cup of tea, I'm just working to make things go smoothly there. So, I've gotta step up the wardrobe a bit for this shindig. Lookin' sharp in a blazer, skirt and pearls, I set out to LeMont, which is UP on Mount Washington. There's no way I can haul my ass up a mountain dressed up and arrive not looking sweaty and haggard, so I employed the use of the Duquesne Incline. It's one of two inclines that date back to the 1870s to take passengers up and down the steep hillside along the bank of the Monongahela river.

Wheeeee! I hope we don't have a landslide!

The incline building still uses a woodstove for heat?

I'm glad I pared down the panniers and basket as I had to carry the bike up two sets of steps once inside the Incline's lower building. Ooof. They didn't make things wheelchair accessible back in the 1800s!

It has a stunning view from up there.

The valet guys were sufficiently impressed. They're not accustomed to seeing people arrive on a bike.
The remarkable thing was, only one of my co-workers was all that stunned that I rode my bike over. They have become so used to seeing me on a bike that they thought nothing of it. "Oh hey, you rode your bike up here? Cool." "You made it over here faster than we did in the car."
I liked the nonchalant attitude. I'm de-sensitizing them.

Afterwards, I decided to take the famous Sycamore Avenue back down. Sycamore Ave is one of the Dirty Dozen streets.
I can imagine how brutal this street is to climb up. Going down was an unfamiliar obstacle course of potholes and sharp blind turns. I rode the brakes the whole way not knowing what was in store for me around each bend.

Bike Pittsburgh is using my "Little Girl in Training Wheels in the Bike Lane" photo!

"Excuse me, did you drop a scarf?"

I noticed an abandoned scarf on the Ft Duke pedestrian bridge.

Further ahead, I noticed someone who might be the owner, she had her coat draped over her arm and I guessed that her scarf had also been draped there and had dropped a few yards back.
I was right.