Falling Water Everywhere

It’s a little funny how so far on this trip there are little things that keep resurfacing. Last night we stayed in Uniontown. It was no more fun than the anticipated year of union issues. It was larger than I had thought. Downtown was 4 or 5 streets. The directional signs listed the courthouse and the high school. (we drove past both) But it was merely a poor, dead factory town.

Even the illusion of summer is not present here. Everything feels rough and dirty. I am reminded of Flashdance and Coal Miner’s Daughter and all of it takes on new meaning as we travel over the mountains. It’s less mountain, but it’s still very much mountain.
The elephant is still pretty much present on my chest. PA is better than MD and WV as it does believe in guard rails, even on not so major roads. This is good, because at my height, I see just enough to know there is a straight drop down right next to me and I see the tops of trees, but I don’t get the full view of the drop. I get metal, which is preferable.

Uniontown was so sad, and we could not find a coffee shop. So we headed out of town on the scenic highway toward Frank Lloyd Wright.

It was scenic, I guess, but… as I mentioned everywhere seems poor and a little wild. Even the farm fields that we past - all on steep high mountainsides that do not have that pastoral feel - they feel tired, and hostile. We drove a long way and there was not much. Lots of houses in states of disrepair and looking like something out of a horror movie.

We then entered a state park area - not much different, but the road narrowing and the drops steeper. We hit a town (red on the map even) and pulled into Joe’s gas and go for fill up. 3 of the 4 pumps were not working. To FLW’s, we had to take a turn at this intersection. And as I sat in the car thinking, hmmm maybe this is the outskirts and we should drive a little ways more before taking this turn, I realized ahead of me was a battered sign that read: town center and post office. There was a tired building up the hill that seem to hold a package store and said post office, but the view behind the sign was of yet another building with window’s boarded up and siding coming down. Across the street was a pizza hut. I realized with some disappointment - this WAS the center of town.

So we turned and started yet another climb upwards - the poor little car. After a few miles much to my surprise it looked like we’d come across something! We had -a spot with state park sports - among them white water rafters. We passed a group of twenty in their little life jackets and hard hats getting instruction. And I thought NO BLOODY WAY. (In fact later, after passing a bill board advertising zip lines - I concluded that I’d rather zip line through these horrible mountains than white water ride. Both are bad however, and you will not be reading about any such adventures from me.)

However, where the tourist go - so goes the coffee. We did - on the side of the mountain - find a little bakery / coffee shop. It had outdoor seating and was very nice in a quaint mountain-y sort of way. Have you been to Lake Placid? This was sort of like that, but much, much, MUCH smaller. (this was the only coffee shop, there was one restaurant/bar, a bike shop, and two stores. One a market-like place and next to it a gift store the sign on which read: “Open Weekdays By 3 pm”. The places to stay were all houses, but this was the location with signs of life!

There is an always sandy-ness that comes with beach towns.  There is an always dirtiness that comes in ski towns to me and this is like that.  But anyway...

Outside said bakery was a chain saw carving of a cow popping out of a cupcake. I thought it was pretty cool, though as we sat eating b’fast one of the two men at the next picnic table asked if we thought it was a cow. Um, yeah, what else could it be? Turned out - the questioner (a young man in his 30’s) was the owner and his companion (an older man in his 60’s) was the “artist”. One of the two was apparently concerned that it read right. The cow having arrived only yesterday.

So, after a nice chat and some coffee we still had time to kill. We drove further into the “park” and viewed the science view. Mountains. High. Big drop. Lots of green. The only thing that could make it worse is winter.

Finally on to Falling Water. When you drive in, your first stop is a wooden guard gate - like at the state parks in CT, where you pay. This seemed odd. Wouldn’t you think they would be in a building? Nope, pass your credit card thru the window and drive on. I have always heard that to get to the house is a bit of hike. It is.

There is a not-horrible walk to the “visitor’s center”. This is a open air (but roofed wooden structure that is a staging area. There is a little display on the Kaufman’s - the family that commissioned the house. You might know this family from the department store which ultimately got bought out by May Co. (i.e. Macy’s). There is a rest room. A gift shop. And a café - where we later ate an over priced and little odd lunch. (I had a butternut and brie Panini - sounds good- but it was on white bread… and the heel of the white bread at that. That folks seems to be the area in a nut shell.)

After waiting for our beeper to go off (yes, like the kind you get while you wait to be seated at Outback), we started the walk to the house. It’s a fairly long walk. Not miles or anything, but not a short walk either, we came to the house. It looks like the pictures. Which I can’t show you here because the paper work given with your ticket expressly says what you can and cannot do with any pictures taken. One of the many no no’s - posting online.

The house. It is impressive. It is odd that this is now my third FLW house and I was never exactly a fan. He is, in truth, the only architect I know really. And now this kind of sets up an odd little precedent: three summers we’ve traveled, Three summers we’ve seen a FLW location. Can we keep that up?

I’m glad to have come to this house at this stage. It is in many ways the best example of what he was trying to do (or claimed) that I have seen. I could see him in this structure and “get it” here. That being said - it has the usual FLW “issues” most of the ceilings are low. The doorways too narrow. He couldn’t care less about a kitchen, the rooms small… I didn’t really like. I wouldn’t want to live here and the heating bills must be horrendous.

Heating was not a problem today. It was again a warm day and ironically while we were there is started to poor. So we were at Falling Water, IN falling water. The house has clearly been worked on, but you can see in spots where/how the weather has worn at it. There is a hallway with skylights that clearly leak. Inside is a rock fountain to accommodate a natural spring. Water runs in and then out. Really? Thru winter? I like the bringing the out in, but… this really seems like not a good idea.

From the outside it is in fact more spacious and more interesting. Inside - lots of stone and lots of patios. Again - very cool but here? I asked how much snow they get. The answer: “a lot”.

At the end of the tour is a 15 minute development pitch asking for money. I appreciate the need, but the manipulation of it was trouble-some.

So I’m glad to have seen it. I think I would have been annoyed though if we had traveled directly here with this sole destination. Or if we had flown here for only this purpose. Perhaps we should have named this blog not around the block but ‘just once’.
It was worth seeing. Once.

So back through the mountains we went heading toward Pittsburg. We had found on the internet a place in a small town call Castle of Blood - where its Halloween all the time. How could I refuse? We found it. This haunted house in the middle of nowhere in a town that’s Main St has 8 houses and the “roads” are less than driveways. But sadly, despite what the internet said, it was not open year round. October only.

The lesson: not everything online is true. Who knew?

We are now in the outskirts of Pittsburg, In our search for food this eve, we saw a sign : Pierogies. This is a restaurant theme you don’t see daily, so we went to check it out. It was in a strip mall built as part of a condo community. The company store without the company? Sadly it was closed, but ironically the community was also called Falling Water.

Tomorrow we shall go in search of Jennifer Beals. (Flashdance?)