Molly's Trollys tour

Thanks to our friends at the the Carnegie Library we were able to venture out with our students on a Molly's Trolleys tour. It was a gorgeous day for sightseeing. We shared briefly about our tour on our Week Three post  from ALEC summer camp.

Our driver took us all around the city while our tour guide told us stories and little facts about the many landmarks that make up beautiful Pittsburgh.

We went to the Duquesne Incline first in the Mt. Washington neighborhood. This was most of our students first time to ride the incline so it was very exciting! Our tour guide, Ms. Debra, took our students down below the incline to watch all the big wheels and gears turn and show them how the little incline cars go up and down each time.

Ms. Debra shared many stories about various downtown buildings and the history behind them. A few that stuck out to our students was the underground 4th river that flows under Pittsburgh, and the story about the large stone lions outside of the banks that are believed to protect the banks.

Once we were off the incline, our students knew that we would shortly be making a special stop at Dream Cream ice cream shop in downtown, as we walked across the walkway over Carson street to our trolley ride, the students began chanting very excitedly "We're going to some ice cream! We're going to get some ice cream!" all the way across the foot bridge and into the trolley below. It was quite funny.

Chocolate was a favorite flavor by far during our Dream Cream visit. The students really enjoyed perusing the many flavors to pick from. Mr. Thomas is the "Chief Cone" at Dream Cream and he shared a little about what he does and what Dream Cream accomplishes as a business and members of the community. He asked the students at one point what they dreamed of doing/being some day. Makayla said she wanted to work in an ice cream shop, Mr. Thomas told her to come back in a couple years and he would have a job for her. Below is a great video sharing more about Dream Cream's mission.

 
The tour and visits were extremely fun and all of our students were very excited following the trip. We are so appreciative to our friends at Carnegie Library, our tour guide, our Molly's Trolleys driver and Dream Cream for making this day so fun and memorable. Thank you all!

-Amber