USA /
Canada, Newsletter 9 - November, 2012
Pennsylvania
is a Commonwealth, as are three other states, Kentucky, Massachusetts and
Virginia, which use this official title. Autumn has arrived.
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| Autumn has arrived |
Liquor laws
throughout The States and Canada vary considerably. Our travels started in the southern states
where we could buy beer and wine with our groceries. Not so, when we got to Pennsylvania. The state government seems to have a monopoly. Spirits and wine can only be bought through
these outlets
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| Only Pennsylvania wines sold here |
while beer can be bought in cases (takes up too much caravan
space), only at beer distribution centres which we found hard to find and never
near big shopping centres. Six Packs are only at 6 pack stores (few and far
between).
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| 6 - Pack Shack |
Similarly in
Canada, the Ontario Liquor Control Board (OLCB) shops are government operated
whereas in the Maritime Provinces you shop at the supermarket.
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| Brilliant colours in sunshine |
City of Altoona
(in western Pennsylvania), grew around the railroad industry.
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| Horseshoe Curve - critical infrastructure during WW2 |
Nearby the
horseshoe curve has become a tourist attraction. It raises trains to a
sufficient elevation to cross the Allegheny Ridge then onto Pittsburgh and the
rest of western United States.
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| Train on the Horseshoe Curve |
Sixty trains a day use the curve. In the early
1800’s travel and trade was carried by Conestoga wagons with a trip from
Philadelphia to Pittsburgh taking 23 days. New York had the Erie Canal and the
Philadelphian businesses were suffering. A plan to build a canal to Pittsburgh
(a town rich in steel and iron) had only one problem - the Allegheny
Mountains.
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| Canal boats were hauled on railway wagons |
It was decided to build the
Allegheny Portage Railroad with ten incline planes – 5 on each side of the
mountains. It was 36 miles in length. Stationery steam engines pulled barges,
mounted on wagons, up the inclines,
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| Incline Plane No.6 |
locomotives travelled between the inclines
and then the same to get down the mountains.
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| Reconstructed Incline Plane No 6 |
It worked well for 20 years (1834
– 1854), then the railroad with tunnels was built which put an end to this
canal system.
We were
heading for Pittsburgh to spend Saturday with Ellen who had been an exchange
student in Yass some years ago. As we were not too far from a couple of
architect, Frank Lloyd Wright’s best homes we visited them, both very different.
Fallingwater was built cantilevering over a waterfall.
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| Fallingwater |
It was the weekend home
of Pittsburgh department store owner Edgar Kauffman completed in 1937.
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| Living area cantilevered over the creek |
Kauffman
Junior handed it over to the Western Pennsylvania Conservancy in 1963. We loved
the style and position, a dream home.In all of the Frank Lloyd Wright homes photos were not allowed but you could buy a book.
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| Bachelor pad upstairs at Fallingwater |
Nearby
Kentuck Knob, one of Frank Lloyd Wright’s last homes to be built,
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| Kentuck Knob |
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Nearby Kentuck Knob, one of Frank Lloyd Wright's homes to be built, was completed
in 1956 for the Hagens, owners of a large dairying company. Now it is privately
owned by Lord Palumbo in UK, and he fits in his vacation visits with the tour
program. The house is nestled into the side of the hill in harmony with the
landscape rather than dominating it.
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| Kentuck Knob nestles into the hill |
It had extensive views across hills and
farmland, but the Hagens planted thousands of trees fifty years ago, which are
now beautifully mature, so you have to walk a little way through the woodland
to appreciate the views.
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| The View |
The east entrance is like a walled courtyard with
carports and the windows mostly face the south and west for the best light and
warmth. There is in-floor heating (pipes of heated water) and we thought we
could quite happily live there.
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| Kentuck Knob - the entrance |
We really
enjoyed our visit to Pittsburgh with Ellen and her daughters Kirsten and Kylie.
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| Kirsten, Ellen and Kylie on Pittsburgh waterfront |
Set in a valley at the confluence of 3 rivers, the Allegheny, Ohio and
Monongahela, and formally a steel manufacturing base, it is known as the City
of Bridges.
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| Lots of Bridges |
We went on a Just Ducky Tour through the city and into the Ohio
River
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| Just Ducky Tours |
where we could view many of the steel bridges. We were told there are
more here than in Venice.
The railway runs along the south side of the river
and the magnificently restored Railway station was a great scenic place to have
dinner.
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| Dinner with Ellen, Kirsten and Kylie |
As the sun was setting we then caught the Monongahela Incline (built
more than 100yrs ago and used to transport people up and down the steep cliffs).
The view of the city lighting up as darkness approached was very pretty.
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| Pittsburgh night skyline |
Some of the houses in the neighbourhood had
begun putting up Halloween decorations and lights.
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| Halloween decorations |
Further west
into Ohio we travelled through another area of Amish and Mennonite communities. I’ll attach to the email some notes about the sects.
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| Mennonite mum and children in their buggy |
By now the autumn
colours were really brilliant and the trees just glowed in the sunshine.
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| Autumn |
Every so
often we come across a real “gem” of interest and at Dover Ohio it was the
Warthers Museum. Ernest Warther, known as Mooney, was a brilliant carver. He left
a wonderful legacy or ivory, ebony and walnut carved pieces, mostly steam
trains.
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| Warther's Engine No. 999 - from Walnut & Ivory |
The one-of-a-kind- collection has been appraised by the Smithsonian
Institution as a “priceless work of art”. We were impressed! Today second,
third and fourth generation family members have expanded the handmade knife
industry producing outstanding cutlery.
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| Warther's Funeral train of Abraham Lincoln - ebony and ivory |
We called on Dan and Monica, a couple we’d met
3 months earlier on the Blue Ridge Parkway. It was really great to meet the
locals and share a meal in Loudonville. We learn't so much more about the area.
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| Lincoln Tomb, Springfield, Illinois |
For
something different we did a tour of the Frank Lloyd Wright’s Dana-Thomas
house. Susan Lawrence Dana, an heiress to a substantial fortune, was widowed in
1900. Eager to express her personality and to become the leading hostess in
Springfield, she decided to completely remodel her family’s Italianate mansion.
Her search for an architect ended when she was introduced to Frank Lloyd
Wright.
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| Dana-Thomas House, Entertainment Wing |
The
house, a showcase for Wright’s Prairie style, is quite large – Dana lived there
for about 40 years and then the next owners the Thomas’s also for 40 years.
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| Dana-Thomas House, Living Area |
They are credited with maintaining the houses’ original furnishings and design.
They sold it to the State of Illinois in 1981, and after restoration it now
contains one of the most intact Frank Lloyd Wright interiors. It has beautiful
coloured leadlight glasswork throughout in abstract butterfly shapes, believed
to have been designed by Marion Mahony (wife of Walter Burley Griffin) who was
working in Frank Lloyd Wright’s studio in Chicago at the time.
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| Only in America (item 10!!) |
St
Louis on the Mississippi is also on the border of Illinois and Missouri. The
city was founded in 1764 by the French, assumed by the Spanish, attacked by the
British, transferred back to France and eventually sold to the United States as
part of the Louisiana Purchase in 1803.
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| St Louis City Park |
Soon after, Lewis and Clark led the
famous two year expedition via the Missouri River, to reach the Pacific, thus
opening up the central western areas for settlement.
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| Museum of Westward Expansion |
A huge arch on the
riverfront was built in 1965 to signify “The Gateway to the West.”
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| St Louis, Missouri - Gateway Arch |
We lined up
with hundreds of others, to ride to the top of the arch- it was the St Louis
Marathon weekend plus busloads of visitors from Wisconsin for an important
football match.
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| At the top of the Arch |
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| Viewing windows at the top |
We
did a city Tram tour which took us to Forest Park, on the edge of the city. It
was here the 1904 World’s Fair and Olympic Games were held.
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| Forest Park |
It is a beautiful
park and has cricket, tennis and golf facilities, a zoo, Art Museum, History
Museum, skating rink and many more attractions, all set in beautiful parklands with
mature trees.
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| Saint Louis in front of the Museum of Art |
Our
fourth Frank Lloyd Wright (F L W) home designed in his later years was about 10
kms from the city – the Kraus Home – 1950’s.
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| Kraus Home, St Louis |
It took more than a decade to
build and was based around parallelograms. The wood F L W specified was
initially unavailable and many of the bricks needed, were not rectangles-
needing 60 or 120 degree corners. So the building materials were special orders
that often took years to acquire.
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| Beautiful leadlight glasswork in Kraus home |
The house is small but in FLW style the
principle space is the living area, with one wall fully glazed looking out onto
a view. The furniture and furnishings were also designed and retained. Many of
the chairs looked uncomfortable and the main bedroom had a parallelogram bed
while the spare bedroom had a hexagonal bed. We didn’t think this house was our
style.
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| Courtyard in Kraus Home |
So
now Route 66 goes west and more about that interesting drive next time.
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