Down Mingo

Zac and I have been very fortunate to be able to travel a little bit together.  Nothing too exotic or anything you need a passport for, meaning standard continental U.S.  Last week we got to go see the thriving metropolis that is Mingo Junction, Ohio.  I know you can't read sarcasm but I laid it on pretty thick in that last sentence.  We landed in Pittsburgh Pennsylvania which according to a laminated poster board is 'America's Most Livable City'.  I immediately say bull because according to the probably 15 stucco signs upon every entrance into Scottsdale it reads 'Most Livable City'.  I guess Scottsdale is the worlds most livable city rather than just Americas.  Take that Pittsburgh. Plus our signs won't get damaged in a wind storm.  Anyhoo, Mingo is about 40 minutes away from Pitt. so not too bad if I say so myself.  I was instantly claustrophobic because of all the shrubbery and I had forgotten what the color green looked like.

We went to Mingo Junction to visit Zac's grandma 'Baba' Mary D.  Our docket was full of things to do including the following:

BINGO-

We kicked everyones preverbal backsides at Bingo.  Take that gerrys.  Zac won three times and Baba and I won once.  We took pictures to document the experience.  The best thing is that Baba has good luck charms that she rubs numbers with in the hopes that the bingo caller would call it.  She even started to yell at them to pick certain numbers.  Baba also insisted on sitting in the middle of Zac and me so in case we didn't know what a bingo was she would help us.  Half way through she put the small pig you see above on my card and told me to move it around if I wasn't getting numbers picked.  Quite the experience and I would suggest it to anyone who wants a rockin' good time.  Plus we got cookies and cake.

This is the steel mill.  The reason Mingo Junction exists.  The sad thing about the mill is that it has completely shut down.  I have never been to a town that is dying but this is one.  They took the high school out completely and demolished the football/baseball field.  The closest larger town to Mingo (Stubenville) has even taken out stop lights because there isn't enough traffic and it costs too much to run.  It's pretty sad to see.  The only things in town are bars and two pizza places.  The bars are full.

We had a garage sale on Saturday.  Baba made 6 bucks off of it. 

It took Baba three times but we finally got a good picture of Zac and me in front of the ice cream shop.

Some of the best pizza.  SO good!  The two times we did have pizza it was done a bit different there in the eastern states.  They serve them by slices and they are square pieces.  They then put them in square boxes they refer to as 'trays'.  Also some of the oldies would say the word yuns.  Let me explain.  "Yun's make sure to enjoy this pizza!"  Zac is going to try and bring 'yuns' to the west side.

This is the Serbian Orthodox church in Stubenville.  We went to the Sunday service with Baba.  That is all I will say about that.

This man on the poster is the reason Zac is a Bears fan.  When Zac's dad was a little boy (seven years old or so) Joe Fortunato was at a carnival in town and asked Zac's dad to take his little girl on the carousel.  Ever since that day, Emil was a bears fan which in return converted Zac.

This is a picture of the bridge connecting West Virginia to Ohio over the Ohio River.  Saweet.

Thus ends yet another adventure in our life.  I was glad we were able to do it because, you know, now I can say I went down Mingo.