Yeah, check your map. Vandergrift is ~25 miles northeast of the center of Pittsburgh. In Armstrong county.
An hour west of Pittsburgh puts you well inside Ohio.
Whoops, sorry. Make that Westmoreland county.
The Doors family is considering a move sometime next year to either Pittsburgh or San Antonio. (I’ll leave it up to y’all to figure out who’s pushing for which city.) His grandmother lives in Scott Twp., and we’re investigating the possibility of putting an offer in on her house. Except for the crappy roads, hills and traffic, it’s a dead heat on both cities.
Robin
Hey! I grew up in Beaver County! Home of Sadie’s Big Beaver Restaurant, I kid you not. It’s on 51 between Beaver Falls and Koppel. Everything out there is called Beaver: Beaver Falls, Beaver (the county seat where they filmed the Michael Keaton movie Gung Ho), Big Beaver Boro…
I went to Riverside HS, a great little school with a total enrollment of under 800 in 9-12th grades and matriculated at Geneva College down in Beaver Falls. Back then PA only required 183 days of school a year and you got snow days out the yingyang. (Great for the kids but it sucks if you’re an adult.)
Once you see Western PA in the fall with all of the trees ablaze, you’ll never want to leave.
Having so many hills and valleys does funnel the traffic through just a few corridors: OTOH, it also funnels development into certain areas. So you don’t get the sprawl as bad as in Orlando, LA, or NYC where you can go literally 30 miles in any direction before hitting any semblance of wilderness. So like they said, if you know where to go you might be able to find a shortcut. Or not.
I will second all that. I have a canoe, kayak, sailboat. I kayak a different stream every time I go, and seldom do the same stream twice in a year.
There are two seasons, winter and road repair. Penndot sucks.
If you need a veterinarian I would be happy to offer suggestions.
BTW, I live in Apollo, which is 5 minutes away from Vandergrift. Email me if I can help you in any way.
Real close to Armstrong though.
Um, there is a Penn State campus in New Ken, but no Pitt campus that I know of. The Penn State campus is on Route 780.
[QUOTE=vetbridge]
Penndot sucks.QUOTE]
What’s black and yellow and sleeps 6?
A PennDOT truck!
So, you’re moving to within 2-3 three hours of a great dopefest Cleveland/Northeast Ohio Dopefest: Saturday, June 3 2006. Just about a month late. 
Put us on your calendar for next year.
You’re about 30 miles from me.
The Allegheny Valley is an area of old steel mills and support businesses, some of which have been converted to other uses; others are empty hulks. You can get right into downtown Pittsburgh by using route 28. The area is a mix of economic depression and well-to-do neighborhoods.
Got a question for Dopers in the Pittsburgh area. The partner Slip and I have been looking at relocating, and Pittsburgh is on the list (we went there before to attend a wedding, and liked it based on that first visit).
How is it for cultural stuff (read theatre, symphony, etc)? Do they have Mexican food? Gay Dopers, any comments on gay social life in Pittsburgh?
And, do I need to learn a new accent? Hell, spent all this time working on a Vermonter accent, ayup 
Cultural stuff is much better than you’d expect for a city of this size. Result, I guess, of when this was one of the centers of the US economy, and the surviving trusts. symphony ,many theatres and plenty of etc. Restaurants are not that great. There is, of course mexican food, but no outstanding mexican restaurants in m.o.
Not being a gay Doper, can’t comment on the gay social life.
Don’t learn to speak yinzer, it sounds ugly.
Culture is pretty good. Pittsburgh Symphony. Civic Light Opera. Pittsburgh Playhouse (other theater too). Mexican food is kind of a bust; Mad Mex and Don Pablos are the closest thing you’re likely to find.
Can’t tell you anything about gay social life.
The “yinzer” accent gets a lot of press and a lot of criticism, but IME isn’t really all that common. Yinzers are uncommon enough that when you hear one, you’ll actually notice it.
As I noted upthread, give some consideration to Beaver and Washington counties. The taxes are substantially lower than Allegheny county, but you are still in close enough proximity to the city to take advantage of it.
Ok, yes, Tristan needs to brush up on his PA geography and such, that’s for sure.
And my Father in Law has lambasted me for posting the wront county and such.
So I fail.
but lots of good info, and I appreciate everything.
Now comes the race to close on the house before we actually show up, so we can unload the trailer into the house, instead of a storage place. Dang it.