Continuing East

I visited Frank Lloyd Wright's masterpiece Fallingwater, created for a Pittsburgh department store magnate and his family in the 1930s.  The house was famous as soon as it opened in 1938...it was on the cover of Time Magazine.  About half a dozen times during the tour I just wanted to plop down on a couch and take a nap...it's totally a comfortable place.  Built around a mountain creek and atop native rock, it blends into the landscape perfectly.  Blow up the pix for a better look.

It's an interesting house, with living areas on about five levels.

The weather was nice the day I toured Fallingwater, but the day before it was stormy at Lake Erie in Ohio, and the surf was up a bit.

A glowering sky at Lake Erie with an old lighthouse.  I saw Lakes Huron, Erie, and Michigan on this trip.

This is a reconstructed stockade at Fort Necessity, in southern PA.  The French and Indians took this fort from a British army in 1754, which was led by a young colonel named George Washington.  It was the only time Washington ever surrendered to an enemy commander.  He was 22 at the time.

This is an inn on the National Road, today's US 40, in southern PA...about a mile from Fort Necessity.  The road was the first US highway built with federal funds.  Started around 1810, by 1840 it extended west to Vandalia, Illinois...the first link in our federal highway system.

The inn provided meals and a bar/lounge like this room.  But the sleeping accomodations were rustic...beds upstairs, often shared with strangers, and outhouses outside, in the back.

The National Road, running east...today's US 40.

The Youghiogheny River Falls at Ohiopyle.  This is a beautiful area, very close to Fallingwater.  It was my second time here...my friend Nancy and I also came here in 2006.

The canyon of the Yawk.

A trail follows the old railroad bed for 250 miles or so!  You can hike or bike from Pittsburgh to Cumberland MD.  This is near the falls in the earlier pic.

Another pic of the Yawk's gorge from the High Bridge...an old railroad span.