October 6, 2009 – Moving Day, Time to Catch Up

We’re off again today, so I thought it best to catch up on everything. We really haven’t been that busy, so this should be quick.

We had a short and quiet stay in New Bedford. It was late when we got into the campground, so it was pretty much dinner and bed. In the morning, Carol did the laundry while I tried to catch up on some mail. It was close to noon when we left and headed off to Madison, Pa.

The move south from New England has taken us away from the fall colors we had been seeing. It is as if we took a two step back in time. The trees are just beginning to change. There are reds but not too many yellows or gold. I think it will begin to catch up soon. Today, we will move to higher terrain; hopefully, the colder temps will have brought out more of the fall color.

On Sunday morning we drove down to Fallingwater which is a house built by Frank Lloyd Wright at the request of Edgar Kaufman. Kaufman started the Kaufman Department stores in Pittsburgh and used Fallingwater as a summer retreat. We were more interested in seeing the grounds, rather then the house which was fortunate as all of the tours were sold out. With a grounds pass, we could wander just about everywhere we wanted; we just couldn’t go into the house. The house is cantilevered over a waterfall on Bear Run. We had a chance to speak with one of the guides who told us that during October, 1100 visitors a day come to visit the property. I think that it would be very pretty to see in early spring as the trees are just beginning to leaf out.

Madison is closer to Pittsburgh, which enabled us to see Christy. We drove in Sunday afternoon and met with Christy. She introduced us to roommate Sarah and friend Keith. Her room looks much different from when we just moved everything in last August. All of the furniture is in place, art on the walls and some throw rugs on the floor. After that, we went downtown for a quick tour, then off to Ruth’s Crisps Steakhouse where we were joined by “adopted daughter” Danielle. (A note of explanation: Danielle is a young woman we met through theater. She adopted us as her second parental unit and has been a great influence for Christy. Currently, Danielle is doing post graduate work at Carnegie-Mellon University.) We had a wonderful dinner and visit. Both girls had meetings/study groups that evening, so our time together ended all too soon.

Yesterday, the fifth, we took a short drive down to Morgantown and Fairmont, WV. I just wanted Carol to see part of the country. She liked the drive but not necessarily the two towns. One of the aspects of towns in this part of the country is they are often built along the rivers. This means that with the valleys being very narrow, the towns tend to run long and narrow. This doesn’t make for good traffic patterns. It was a nice drive though. On the way home, I wanted to buy some wine. In PA, you can only buy wine at a wine and spirits store. In WV, there are actual liquor stores. Carol found one in Morgantown, entered the address into the GPS and we were off. Wine purchase made, the GPS gave us an inadvertent tour of the WVU campus, which gave me a chance to recount Christy and my visit to the campus two years ago.

So today were off again. I want Carol to see Seneca Rocks and I think the view from Spruce Knob, highest in WV, should be good. The weather calls for rain tonight.