Pittsburgh and Fallingwater

Pittsburgh & Western PA

June 1999

Hmmm, is Pittsburgh Midwest?  Close enough to add in here.  This is actually my Mom’s account, but I will present it here (w/ my editing) in her memory  ̶  I’m sure she would be excited that we’re coauthors and her writing appears in a blog!  Her very detailed trip diaries (including the cost of meals, lodging, etc.) have inspired the trip journals written by my brother and me.

Cemeteries

CEMETERIES 

          Though this blog focuses on journals & photos of trips, I’ve noted that 3 venues stand out for offering photo ops. Previous posts have highlighted samples of “Gardens” & “Religious Sites.” Here I’ll present photos from some of the atmospheric cemeteries we’ve encountered on our travels. As with the gardens, churches, & mosques, I can’t always pinpoint where a photo was taken, but will indicate some of the sites. 

Local cemeteries:

My favorite & most frequent venue is nearby Albany Rural Cemetery, a beautiful & evocative place in every season: winter, 

Religious Sites

Religious Sites 

          As I noted in my "Gardens" post, some venues offer photo ops that cut across trips. In particular, churches & other religious sites offer a variety of exterior looks & museum-quality interiors. Here's a sampling of some favorites. I won't try to label every site, but I'll group them regionally (accurately, I hope). More details can generally be found in the travel journals in other posts. 

Local sites

As I did in the "Gardens" post, I'll begin with a familiar local venue: St. Pius X in Loudonville, where I sing in the choir. Beautifully decorated for Christmas 

Santa Barbara and More Southwest

Santa Barbara

July 1998

Tuesday, 7/21: 

Son Matt’s having a good time doing music in Santa Barbara, why should he have all the fun?  A parental visit sounds good to us.  Our very early flight leaves on time before 7am, but rerouting around some thunderstorms makes us late into Chicago.  Luckily, connecting flight also delayed, we’re only a little late into LA at 11:15.  Pick up our Thrifty car, a Neon, and head to Santa Barbara about 100 miles up the coast.  Clouds there, some hazy sun later, about 75°.  Weather along the coast usually low clouds & fog in the AM (a “marine layer”), at least some clearing by mid-to-late PM.  Plus nice cool temps & fresh breezes.  Into the Sandpiper Lodge, outside the city but on the main road, so easy access.  No AC when we arrive (tho it hardly seems necessary), but install it by our return on Thursday.  A drive thru ritzy Hope Ranch residential area  ̶  beautiful homes and landscaping  ̶  and along the shore and harbor areas, views of surfers, beach volleyball, other California diversions.  

We meet up with Matt at Music Academy of the West, in Montecito, where he’s rehearsing w/ percussion buddies.  A walk around the pretty grounds w/ flowers and a giant fig tree (these are common around here), then into Montecito to an Italian restaurant that’s a favorite of Matt’s.

Gardens

GARDENS

          This blog focuses on trip journals & photos. But some venues offer photo ops that cut across trips. In particular, 3 stand out: gardens, churches & other religious sites, and cemeteries. Here are photos from some favorite gardens & flowering locales. 

Marjorie’s gardens

          My most favorite (and most frequent) garden photo ops come courtesy of the resident gardener. There were humble beginnings at our first house, when fertile earth had to be created in space that had been an above-ground pool. With assistance from some helpers, that turned out well.

Block Island, Capes, & More Northeast

Block Island

September 1999

Thurs./Fri. 9/16-17:

          The original plan for Marjorie’s birthday weekend was to ferry to Block Island Fri. AM and return Mon.  But Hurricane (by now “Tropical Storm”) Floyd puts a crimp in those plans, coming thru Thurs. into Fri. AM w/ very high winds and lots of rain: about 6” here, a new 24-hour rainfall record (over 12” in Cairo, a little south of us).  We lose power for about 6 hours Thurs. evening and the water is more than our backup sump pump can handle.  Matt’s here and helps move most stuff away from the water in the basement (including a lot of his percussion equipment!), but carpeting on one side gets soaked.  And needless to say, ferries to BI are canceled Thurs. and Fri.  After mopping things up as best we can, Fri. night Matt makes his Mom’s birthday dinner, excellent ravioli with spinach; I supply treats from Bella Napoli for dessert.  Promising weather reports for the weekend, we decide to head for BI on Sat.

Midwest Road Trip and More Midwest

          We’ve traveled pretty widely thru the Midwest: Marjorie grew up in Wisconsin and we lived in Madison while I was in grad school; we have family & friends in Michigan, Wisconsin, Kansas City, Minneapolis, Springfield IL; professional conferences have taken me to cities like Chicago, Cincinnati, and Detroit. Following is the account of a driving trip back to Wisconsin for Marjorie’s high school reunion. Our other travels in the Midwest have mostly entailed family visiting or other not so much “trip journal” stuff. But I’ll include some of that after the reunion trip journal.

The Great Reunion Road Trip

Summer 2010

          Marjorie has been a regular attendee of her Portage HS class reunions, I’ve joined in a couple of times.  When Year 45 was coming up she suggested making a road trip out of it.  I was skeptical – nearly 2 weeks with lots of driving!  But she put together an itinerary of good friends and family (also good) to see to & fro, and I’ve gotten to be friends with several of her classmates, so I concluded (to get in a Wisconsin mood): “You betcha, Marge!”  We could be guided by some MapQuest directions and Penelope (as we call our GPS voice); I’m more a map person, Penelope & I would have a few run-ins along the way, but we learn to accept each other’s quirks and I come to appreciate her soft entreaties (“take the motorway,” or “turn around” if I’ve gone against her wishes).  I wasn’t going to bother with a trip journal a la our European and other jaunts, but changed my mind a few days in – we’ll cover a lot of ground, see a lot of folks along the way, so there’s lots to remember (for us anyway; I suppose this has less cachet than my accounts of European travel).