Southern Pennsylvania

Friday dawned drizzly, cool, and gray. Usually one of my favorite kinds of days, but not the best for sightseeing. We had stayed in Somerset, PA after a long, long day of driving Thursday. We stopped for some breakfast snackage and got on the PA turnpike...only to discover that had somehow gotten going the wrong direction. The PA turnpike is a "restricted access" highway (not to mention ridiculously pricey in the toll department) and therefore we had no choice but to backtrack TWENTY miles before we could exit again. I was veeeery frustrated, because I had a lot of things planned for this day! So when I finally recovered and we exited, we saw the sign for Fallingwater--which we had tentatively planned to drive by on Thursday if we had the time. As it turned out, we were driving very late and it was completely dark when we were in that area, so there was no chance of stopping. But as we exited and saw that sign on Friday morning, we said "what the heck" and got off that blasted turnpike, and journeyed into the scenic Pennsylvania wilderness.

It really was a pretty drive, and so much more "real" than just miles of interstate. We had seen an architecture show on the house--known as Frank Lloyd Wright's masterwork, and a prime example of American design--so we knew a little bit of background. I expected to drive by, take a photo, and get moving with the day's plans. Well, we pulled in and found ourselves persuaded to sign up for a guided tour (don't ask the price!). As it turned out, we both agreed it was well worth the detour and delay. That house is AWESOME. I mean that in the true sense of the word---which should be used much less casually, in my opinion. I don't know much about architecture, but it was explained that Wright designed the home to be organic--to flow out of the natural landscape. I think the landscape was to his great advantage, as it is in a beautiful location. The outside of the home is interesting and unique, but the inside is what really impressed me. The house is built over a waterfall with cantilevered terraces. Inside the main room of the home, there is a hatch that opens to the creek below, letting in the gentle sound and cool breeze from the water. He designed almost every room with at least one glass wall, to "open up the box" as our tour guide put it. He also designed many interesting nooks and crannies--shelving, fireplaces, and all of the furniture. We were not allowed to take pictures inside the house, and received dire warning about even posting our pictures of the exterior on "any website". Since I am not much of a deviant, I will follow that rule...but I strongly suggest you Google Fallingwater and see what comes up. Pretty cool, huh?

After we got back on the road, we headed in the direction of Gettysburg. I should probably preface this next part by mentioning that for a history travel buff, I am not much for battlefields--and really the Civil War is not way up there either. Most that I've seen just look like fields, and if you're really involved in the experience then they are depressing fields at best. But I still felt obligated to go. We visited Antietam last summer and that experience was probably even better than this one turned out to be.

The visitor's center is really impressive--probably the biggest and nicest that I have been to, and I've seen a lot of them in the last few years. But they were charging big bucks for the museum and film, and the bookstore was incredibly crowded with obnoxious teenage school groups and ridiculously overpriced (I picked up a neat Confederate soldier's cap replica that I thought would be great for school...it was $100. 'nuff said.) So we took the auto tour (the free, paper one, not the $20 audio one) and cruised around the battlefield in the rain. I wasn't even that inclined to get out at the stops due to the icky weather, which really made the experience more of a drive in the rain than anything. I guess it could have been much better if I weren't such a tightwad and/or grumpypants, but whatever. I can say I saw it! And it was a really big field of battle. Here are some shots.

Now, next on the itinerary was to drive through Amish country and maybe even hit up Hershey. That did not pan out. We were both pretty tired and it was getting dark, so we headed up to Harrisburg and called it a night. We did get a pretty good off-interstate drive through some lovely country, though. Not a bad day, overall.