Chapter 13

Welcome back to my blog. Today we are talking about Chapter 13 of the book "Regional Landscapes of the United States and Canada" by Stephen Birdsall. The Chapter is about the Empty Interior. Look at the map below for a picture of where we are talking about. The picture is from the US Embassy in Japan's website.

As you can see, included in this region is Alaska, parts of Canada (Yukon and British Columbia), Washington, Oregon, California, Nevada, Idaho, Utah, Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, Colorado and Wyoming.

Birdsall writes, "The Empty Interior is a land of stark contrast where aridity and lushness intermingle across wide desert valleys and high, rugged mountains." (p. 252)

Pittsburgh is home to Mount Washington, which overlooks the city. In fact, USA Today voted the view from Mount Washington the second most beautiful place in the US. (As someone who has been there, I would agree.) From Mount Washington, you can see a view of the city, including the view of the rivers and the confluence (where the Allegheny and Monongahela form the Ohio River) and the city's skyline.

There are two inclines that go up Mount Washington. (If you scroll down this blog enough, you will see photos of my trip on the the incline and of the incline.) Here is a cool video of one of the inclines going up Mount Washington.

(Unfortunately, this video was taken during the day. If you ever go, I highly suggest going during the night. Much more breathtaking.)

But Mount Washington isn't really a "high, rugged mountain." It's only 367 feet! I guess we can say Pittsburgh is different from the Empty Interior in that way. But it's an important part of Pittsburgh for tourism reasons and it used to be the site of many coal mines. It was even called Coal Hill.