Home at Last

As we leave Washington, we have plenty of time to admire the sights along the Beltway as we sit in morning rush hour, or perhaps its still last nights rush hour; I don't know, it never seems to change. We took this picture out our front window in traffic. Notice how I cleverly edited the photo so it looks like we are driving out in the country. This is the Mormon church in Washington. It was opened in 1974 and is over 160,000 square feet in floor area and 288 feet high. Its situated so that you can't see it until you come around a bend in the Beltway and it suddenly appears. Very striking!

After a few hours of driving, we left the heavy Washington traffic behind and enjoyed the rest of the drive to Champion PA, just an hour east of Pittsburgh. Its nice travelling this time of year because there is always lots of room in the campgrounds. Red sky at night is good, right?

We're here for a couple days so we figured we'd take in a famous local site. Fallingwater is a famous home built for the Kaufman family of Pittsburgh in 1934 by Frank Lloyd Wright. They owned land in rural Pennsylvania which included a lovely waterfall that they wanted incorporated in the design of their summer home.

 The property was turned over to a conservancy group in 1963. The home was built as a weekend home for Edgar Kauffman, his wife and son. After the parents died, and because the son had not married, when quite elderly, he donated the property. Each day hundreds of visitors come to enjoy the remarkable building and its location. We're standing on the original driveway to the house.

A beautiful stream runs under the cantilevered main floors with access to the stream from the main living area. Its a small stream coming down from a hill and its volume changes very little whether its very dry or flooding everywhere else. There are 3 bedrooms, each with a bathroom and private deck for lounging. Higher up on the hill is the carport and servants quarters.

Isn't this a beautiful location. The home was only used during the summer and closed up for the cold months. It wasn't insulated and only had summer windows. At the time it cost $155,000.00 to build which is around $2.4 million in todays money. When built, it was considered Frank Lloyd Wrights greatest achievement. We couldn't take pictures inside, but his designs included all the inside furniture so everything matched to create whatever theme he wanted. Its was a lovely spot to explore and spend a few hours.

Our next stop on the way home is north of Pittsburgh and closer to Buffalo and the border. As we head north, we seem to be in a perpetual spring. Each location is budding out with leaves and flowers. The weather has been warm and the plants are responding. When we arrived and set up, there were dozens of people crawling through the trees beside us. Found out that trout season had started that day and the river beside us is teeming with fish, and fishermen. Only a day here so we went down the road to an outlet mall and grammie bought a pair of shoes. Of course it took four hours of browsing before we actually bought them.

The day we get home started cold and clear. I had to scrape the car window so I could see to hook it up. I hope this doesn't mean we're getting home too early and the cold hasn't left. We had a great drive home and no problems at the border which always surprises us when that happens. Got home and hooked up by mid afternoon and now we're ready to greet the grandkids and catch up on whats happened since we left 6 months ago. It seem like we just left but its great to be back, for awhile anyway. Don't expect new blogs for awhile. Not much doing until we hit the road in the fall. Thanks for enjoying our travels; stay tuned for more.