Independence Day fell on a Thursday this year, creating a four-day window of opportunity to go somewhere. So late on the afternoon of July 3 we headed east, spending the night near Toledo, Ohio. On the 4th, we drove on to Pittsburgh, where we spent three nights and two full days, returning after an all-day drive today.

We stayed at a hotel in the pleasant Moon Township, Pa., not far from Pittsburgh International Airport. The days were hot and steamy and punctuated by vigorous rainfall in the afternoons — supposedly typical for western Pennsylvania in July, though it was a lot like home this summer. Anyway, even occasional heavy downpours didn’t slow us down much.

The road from metro Chicago to Pittsburgh, if you take the Indiana East-West Toll Road and then the Ohio Turnpike, takes you smack through the Cuyahoga Valley National Park. We spend a few hours walking its trails on July 4 as a stopover on the way to Pittsburgh.

Getting up early(ish) on July 5, we first went to the Duquesne Incline, one of Pittsburgh’s two funiculars, and rode it up and down. At the top we took in the hazy morning view of the city and the meeting of the Allegheny and Monongahela rivers. My thinking about funiculars: when you find one, ride it. My thinking about the Monongahela: that’s just a damned fun name to say.

Next we drove to the Oakland neighborhood and spent time at the University of Pittsburgh. Specifically, the Heinz Memorial Chapel — the church that ketchup built — and the Cathedral of Learning and some of its highly artful, internationally themed rooms, unlike anything I’ve seen before.

Lunch on the first day was at the the Original Oyster House on Market Square, which is known as Pittsburgh’s oldest bar and restaurant, and which serves up a mighty fine array of seafood. From there we repaired to Point State Park at the meeting of the rivers, site of a French and then British fort in the days before American independence, and the seed of modern Pittsburgh. That’s also where our lengthy guided walking tour of downtown Pittsburgh began, which took up the rest of the afternoon.

That should have been enough for the first day, but our momentum carried us on to the Andy Warhol Museum for a few hours in the early evening, taking advantage of its longer hours on Fridays. A suburban location of Primanti Bros., a local chain, provided a hearty dinner that night.

The second day, July 6, wasn’t quite as busy, but we got around. Late in the morning, we took an extensive tour of Carrie Furnace, a hulk of a former blast furnace complex on the Monongahela. It reminded me greatly of the Sloss Furnaces in Birmingham, Alabama, though the scale was even larger. After all, Birmingham was the Pittsburgh of the South, not the other way around.

After lunch in a nondescript but decent Chinese restaurant, we visited the Frick Pittsburgh, whose grounds include his mansion, a museum with his art, a greenhouse, and a carriage and antique auto exhibit. We saw the greenhouse and the auto exhibit.

After treating ourselves to some hipster ice cream late in the afternoon, we went to one more place, despite thunder and rain: Randyland.

It’s the kind of outsider art phantasmagoria beloved by the likes of Roadside America or the Atlas Obscura. For good reason. As Roadside America puts it, the place is a “circus-colored oasis of sunny vibes on Pittsburgh’s formerly grim North Side.”