We rose fairly early today at the Bavarian Inn. We loaded up and checked out in the pouring rain and headed for the closest Interstate headed west. It ran parallel to the National Road that we had a picture of the mile marker from Monroe's home. Since we were time pressed this morning and there was no included breakfast, I had a cup of coffee in the room and we ate our complimentary apples in the car.
We actually arrived early at Kentuck Knob which was very fortunate since it meant we went on the next timed tour and got a private tour. This was probably our favorite of the 3 Wright homes. Of course, Falling Water was the most spectacular, but Kentuck Knob was the most elegantly livable. We had a great tour guide in Suzie and regret that we failed to notice any feedback forms at the Visitor's Center to compliment here before we left.
We had purchased our tickets online in advance for both Kentuck Knob and Falling Water.
We had some of the Hagan dairy ice cream before we left. The Hagan's were the family that built Kentuck Knob. We bought a container of hummus and chips and an extra bag of chips to snack on for lunch as we went to find Falling Water.
Let me just say that if you set off to do this, make sure you have a very detailed map, and good directions to each of the Wright houses in Pennsylvania. They need to post their latitude and longitude coordinates or people can't find them with their GPS systems. They are on tiny roads that don't appear on most maps! The roads were not in the databases of any one of the 3 GPS systems that we had running. I had even picked up a Laurel Highlands Travel Guide 2011 with all 3 houses shown on a map and we still couldn't find all 3 easily. Especially Duncan House, as the critical road Clay Pike was missing all street signs! So, we had some stressful times in the blinding rain, looking hard for little roads that were not signed or not on maps, etc. It may take longer than you think! We were told repeatedly that usually in summer you can just follow the lines of cars... but not today!
That said, it was crazy crowded anyway at Falling Water. It was especially appropriately named today. Water was falling through the ceilings, through the rock walls, over the rock floors, running off the overhangs in sheet, shooting in arcs out of drain pipes, etc. Amazing and crazy. There is a covered walkway from the main house up to the guest house. The rain running off the low side of it was forming a virtual wall of water. Again, amazing and crazy. I just wish we could post photos, but they told us on our tickets that we are not allowed to publish or post or reproduce images we photographed where photography was allowed. So, visit the websites to get an idea of what we saw, but we cannot share ours. Sorry!
We left Falling Water after eating our snacks under their covered walkways making up their Visitor's Center. From the parking lot, we had a cell signal. (Rare in the Laurel Highlands area for us anyway!) We tried to call the PolyMath Park to get instructions for check in around 3pm as per instructions. No answers at any of the 3 numbers they had emailed us. I had picked up little slips of paper with driving directions at each home to get to the next. So, we decided to follow those directions and see what happened. What happened was missing street signs, a critical failure in the printed directions as to which side of the golf course Clay Pike Rd. was on, as well as not one of the 3 GPS systems being able to get us there! Then there was the intermittent phone signal and the flooding rain, Polymath Park hosting a large wedding the next day that was all hands on deck and no one available for us, the only overnight guests, and the ceiling of Duncan House falling in from the famous leaking flat Wright roof. Oh well. We did eventually locate it by driving around eliminating possibilities. We arranged by phone to have a host meet us at the house to pay the other half of our night's rent on Duncan House and to get directions to find a place to eat.
Before I tell you about dinner (our first real meal in 24 hours!) and show you photos. Let me say a word or 2 about Frank Lloyd Wright houses. I did not know prior to this trip that FLW was opposed to window treatments. Also known as curtains, drapes, blinds, shears... He did not even want people to have screens to interfere with his clear glass. Huh, you say. Well, until the sun sets and you are in a lighted house surrounded by darkness in the woods with all you can see is reflections. I have a thing about that, so this was pretty nightmarish for me! Geez. Who'd have thought? Anyway, no curtains, not even in the Master bathroom with its clear glass shower stall. What the heck? Was he some kind of closet nudist? In any event, we have been there and done that now. Once was enough. It was an interesting experience. Duncan House is a Usonian home, so we imagined it would be smaller. But, our hostess when asked told us it was 2900 sq. ft. That is bigger than our home and we have 2 floors, so the trip from the Master bedroom to the kitchen was quite a trek!
So, It was a pretty quiet dinner and we were hungry and enjoyed it despite worrying about the potential flooding in the continuing deluge of Lee. I'll report on the meal in photos.
As we were leaving Nino's I pointed out a small glass display case which contained boxes of homemade candy. We were needing some snacks for the long drive home tomorrow... So I went in the bar and asked about it. I got a story and a sample, we found out they were out of 1/2 pound boxes, so after eating our delicious samples, we bought a one pound box. Nino's Homemade Butter Toffee was originally made and sold by an old woman whose name I forgot in a town nearby that I was told I wouldn't know about (no kidding!) but anyway... When the old woman was about 90 years old she couldn't keep up with demand and no one wanted to inherit her legacy evidently, so she offered her recipe for sale to local store owners or restaurateurs who would keep her candy available for sale. Nino agreed to buy it and now they make a big batch every week at the restaurant's kitchen. It was like a very chocolaty Heath bar. Yum.
The next morning we were up with the sun for the long ride home. We studied the multiple GPS systems and a set of paper maps for an hour before packing the car and leaving Duncan House. Now, honestly it should not have been that hard. And trust me when I tell you that it got even harder once we got in the car. Geez Louise! The first problem, was that the quickest way out was to take the Pennsylvania Turnpike that was probably within 5 miles of us and we had passed on the way here and could definitely back track to. But, since we had blue skies and sunshine for the first time this morning we were hoping to make the most of some scenic drives we had not had views of coming in. Clay's GPSs all said that any scenic route would add an hour to our trip and he did not want to do that. I am not sure what operator error led to it, but I agreed to give up the scenic routes and take the Turnpike and Clay's preferred GPS tried to first avoid the Turnpike and then route us to DC and I-95. So, we headed out down some windy little one lane turkey track headed North and West and wound around for about an hour before I insisted Clay get on the PA Turnpike 3 exits away from where we began and go EAST! Don't believe me.. click the photo, we just stopped the car and got out to photograph the wild turkeys!
The rest was Interstate driving and not terribly interesting. We had sun until we went through a tunnel on the PA Turnpike and crossed the Allegheny Mountains and wound up back in the soup of Lee remnants for most of the rest of the trip until we got pretty far south.
One interesting point about this trip was that we were in 5 states in just a day! We covered parts of NC, VA, WV, PA, and DE. Pretty cool. Around Antietam, you could drive in 3 or 4 states within about 15 minutes, which sounds cool unless it is getting dark your competing GPS systems fail you again and you have to keep flipping atlas pages to find the little corners of map for each of the states! Just an observation.
The other observation is that VA must have the lowest gas prices because gas was 10 to 30 cents per gallon cheaper than neighboring states depending on where you were. Anyway, we made a point to fill up twice in VA. Clay got his best mileage yet on his new Hyundai Elantra, but still no where near the EPA estimates!
Oh, we passed a sign on one of the Interstates that was in the median and said "Mason Dixon Line". That just cracked us up for some reason, but we blew by it so quick there was no chance of getting a photo. Of course, you know it must be an actual line on a map like the Equator, but somehow we didn't expect a sign! I mean we must have both crossed that line numerous times, but neither of us could remember seeing a sign for it. It happened on either Interstate 70 or Interstate 81. Sorry can't be more specific. I am just not sure where it was.
So, we stopped for dinner in Henderson, NC at Skipper Forsyth's BBQ. It was OK, we wouldn't make a special trip out there. I had the vegetable plate and we once again got a laugh. Only in the South. I ordered macaroni and cheese, baked beans and corn pudding and Brunswick stew. The baked beans had ground beef in them, they were sweet and meaty; weird, but not suitable for vegetarians. Don't say I didn't warn you. So, I'll end here with photos of dinner. We got home around 5pm and back to work and routine. We'll go to the Ayden Collard Festival this weekend. So, I'll see if Clay takes photos there for here.
Photos
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