A Most Relaxing Afternoon

We went to Pittsburgh to meet a friend at the zoo. It was supposed to be a relaxing afternoon, a celebration after a stressful time. But it wasn’t.

Pittsburgh is, visually, a gorgeous city. I’ve never been in a city so beautiful. Everywhere you turn, there’s something unusual and interesting to look at. There are highways that border the river with grim warehouses on either side and tree-covered mountains in the distance, like something out of a science fiction movie. There are Orthodox churches with domes of gleaming gold. There are stately stone edifices like an Athenian temple on the same block as Gothic-style cathedrals.  There are streets rows of lovely old Victorian houses tiled up the sides of mountains like rosettes on a wedding cake. There are more parks than I can name, and the parks are breathtakingly gorgeous.  Everything looks as if it was hand-picked by award-winning set designers to be a scene in a fantasy movie.

There’s only one problem with Pittsburgh: it’s impossible to drive in.

Pittsburgh has the worst roads I have ever seen. Part of this is due to those gorgeous rivers and mountains, which force such a large metropolis to be crammed into a funny triangle a fraction of the size you’d expect. But part of it seems to be pure sadism. None of the intersections are at right angles. Many of the roads are set up in a bizarre way, so that there’s exactly one lane going one way and four lanes going the opposite, and if you’re not careful you’ll mistake your lane for a bike path and get smashed by oncoming traffic. There are bridges so vast you can’t see the opposite side when you start across them; it feels like you’re going to fall into the Allegheny or the Monongahela and drown. There are comically steep hills with four-way stops at the top, where you have to step on the accelerator instead of the brake or you’ll roll back into the cars behind you. There are a shocking lack of speed limit signs so you never know if you’re driving the right speed, but that doesn’t matter because the traffic is horrendous and you can’t go fast. And underneath it all, the actual pavement is so ancient the potholes resemble small lakes.

I thought I was used to it, but I was trying to drive to the zoo in Highland Park and not to Oakland which I’ve been to many more times. And I was out of practice, in a new and bigger car.

It took us two hours to drive the thirty-nine miles from my house to the zoo. Even though I’d been there several times, even though the GPS was on the whole time, I kept getting lost. None of the directions made any sense. It’s hard to “turn left” when the roads aren’t at a right angle and there are two or three possible lefts.

When we finally got there, Adrienne’s friend had been doing her math homework in the van for an hour, and the van’s battery was dead. Her mother stayed in the parking lot to wait for roadside assistance, and I took the girls to the zoo. Pittsburgh has the most beautiful zoo, all set up on an ambling path through well-landscaped hills. We had a perfect time for exactly two hours. Then I returned my friend to her mother, who still hadn’t gotten roadside assistance yet but who told me to go ahead and leave, because help was nearly there. I didn’t want to leave. I didn’t want to start driving again, especially so close to rush hour. But there was nothing else for it; they were about to close the zoo. I had to get back on the road.

It went badly the minute I drove out through the gate. I missed a turn because I didn’t know whether my phone was talking about the main street or a side street. I ended up on a small residential street darting up a hill, and then I faced a hairpin left turn onto a main road that was so crowded, it took me five minutes of waiting to be able to turn safely. If you are the pickup truck or the white sedan that were coming from opposite directions and both stopped to let me in, thank you. Otherwise, I might still be there.

Next I found myself on a very skinny bridge, and then I was in even more traffic on the other side between tree-covered hills. I tried to go back in the correct direction several times but I kept getting more and more mixed up. My phone’s GPS scolded me again and again. I began to feel that I was Alice in the chapter of Through The Looking Glass where she tries to walk out to the garden, but finds herself crashing into the front door multiple times. The harder I tried, the more lost I got.

That was when the anxiety from the hairpin turn became a panic attack. I ended up crying in pure terror, parked at a gas station on a bizarre little wedge of pavement where three roads crossed at acute angles. Every gas station in Pittsburgh is on a bizarre little wedge of pavement where three roads cross at acute angles.

“You can do it, Mom,” said Adrienne.

I wasn’t so sure, but I had to try.

I got on my phone to try to find an alternate route, but there was none. It was cross that tiny bridge again or stay at the gas station for the rest of my life.

Finally, I came up with a plan. I was going to leapfrog through Pittsburgh, bit by bit, on residential streets instead of highways, stopping to breathe through the anxiety every so often, until I got back to Oakland by Schenley Park. That was miles and miles out of our way but the only way home that I recognized. I’d been there enough times this summer that I could find my way to the bridge and back to Ohio from there. Adrienne liked that idea because it involved a stop at Trader Joe’s for gluten free cupcakes. And off we went. Nearly half an hour to the Trader Joe’s, only getting lost twice. Cupcakes and bottled water.  More than twenty minutes to Schenley Park, where the glass dome of the Phipps Conservatory glowed like a jewel in the last rays of sunset. From there, I was able to get on Interstate 376.

Interstate 376 was at a standstill.

When we’ve been to Pittsburgh on a Sunday, it’s taken us between five and ten minutes to get from Oakland to the bridge and through the tunnel to the other side of the mountain. Last night, it took us fifty minutes.

We were stranded in a tiny stretch of the highway with flood walls going up on either side, next to an SUV and behind an Amazon delivery truck, with no way to see the sign and make sure we were in the right lane, the speedometer reading zero, every once in awhile rolling forward an inch or two. Panhandlers with signs walked easily through the traffic, requesting a tip. They must have made a million dollars.

Adrienne and I had nothing to do, so we began to chat. We chatted about what a strange day it had been, and whether she was looking forward to Christmas. We chatted about her martial arts dojo’s entry in the Christmas parade and what routine they would perform as they marched. We chatted about urban infrastructure and the convenience of light rail. We talked about the upcoming election. I reminded her about the three branches of government. We talked about everything I could think of, and had a good time, considering. Whatever my flaws, I somehow managed to produce a thoughtful and interesting child.

At that point, we’d inched our way up out of the walled-in stretch of 376 and were ascending to the bridge.

The Fort Pitt bridge is 479 feet in the air.

I am terrified of heights.

It’s one thing to shoot across the Fort Pitt bridge in a minute or two in broad daylight. It’s quite another to be trapped there for a long time in bumper to bumper traffic, after dark, when you’ve already had a panic attack or two. Under such circumstances, you have time to try not to look around. You have time to notice the glinting of the water far below. You have plenty of leisure to wonder exactly how much weight this bridge can take, and wonder how many semi trucks are loading it up right at the moment.

“I can’t talk right now, Adrienne. I’ll have to concentrate on my driving.”

I concentrated on the bumper of the car in front of me. I read his license plate again and again until it became meaningless, a series of bent lines instead of letters and numbers. I recited memorized things to myself over and over, mostly the Lyke Wake Dirge because it was all I could think of. “This ay night, this ay night, every night and all, fire and fleet and candlelight and Christ receive thy soul.”

I have never been happier to get inside the Fort Pitt tunnel.

We were in the tunnel for ten minutes more, chatting again, noting all the emergency exits and talking about what we’d do if there was a bombing or an earthquake. And then, like magic, we were out the other side. The traffic fanned out. Serendipity went up to speed. We were out in the countryside, on our way home.

Getting from the zoo back to Steubenville had taken three whole hours.

And then we were home, snuggling the guinea pig. I found a text from Adrienne’s friend’s family saying she was also home. I was ashamed; in all the stress and excitement I’d forgotten to even wonder if they were all right.

“That was a disaster,” I said. “But it went a lot better than it could have.”

Adrienne wasn’t so sure.

I don’t know when I’ll be back to Pittsburgh for another relaxing afternoon.

I don’t think I can take that much relaxation.

image via Pixabay