May 31 – Jonathon Run Trail

A mostly sunny, slightly cool day so a good one for our hike on the last day before we head home for our daughter’s wedding.

A run is the name of a creek around here. The Jonathon Run Trail follows the run until it flows into the Youghiogheny River. We went as far as Jonathon Falls before turning back to give us a hike of just over 5 km.

It was a fairly flat, easy trail. It only dropped down about 200 feet in elevation from the parking lot to the falls.

Mostly it was just a walk in the woods, as we could only see the run for about 1/3 of the time.

With all the rain we have had, there were a lot of muddy spots.

And only a few drops and climbs on the way back.

We crossed the run a few times.

This bridge looked like it had been hit the from the side. There was a serious bend in it.

A few nice run views.

We saw one other couple and their kids on the trail. We asked them about the waterfall and they said it was nice but it was a very steep climb down. There was also no sign saying where you should climb down. We saw the waterfall from up high and then noticed a large log had a section cut out of it, with a rough trail beyond.

The “trail” down was so steep and muddy that Jennie almost didn’t go down. This picture doesn’t do it justice. It was at least a 60 degree slope. Very slow going down and only slightly faster going up.

But the waterfall was in a very nice setting. I am not happy with the pictures, though.

We sat on this rock and had lunch. It was one of the few spots that got any sun.

And the photosphere.

The GPS says it is a 7 hour drive home, which mean a few more hours on top of that. I am not sure if we will do it in one or two days.

May 30– Fallingwater and Ohiopyle Waterfalls

Today we did a tour of Frank Lloyd Wright’s masterpiece, the home called Fallingwater.

Unfortunately we weren’t allowed to take many pictures. To get inside the home you must take a tour. The regular tour is 1 hour, costs $30 and does not allow pictures during the tour. Twice a day, first thing in the morning, there are tours where you are allowed photography but those tours were booked solid for weeks to come. I should have booked the tour a long time ago but I wanted to wait and see if we had a bad weather day. My mistake.

I booked our regular tour a few days ago but because today was not busy we could have walked in. Forget about that last weekend. Even today by the time we left around 2 pm they were up to tour #35. Our tour had 14 people. So for mid week that is a lot of people.

Even the reception area is beautiful.

Everyone walks down to get pictures at the iconic viewpoint.

The house was commissioned by the Kaufmann family of Pittsburgh as there summer home. They made their money from their large department store. It took two years to build starting in the late 1930’s. Back then a 3 bedroom house cost around $5000. The initial estimate for this house was around $30,000. The final cost was $150,000. Who knows how many millions that would be in today’s dollars.

The house is cantilevered into the rocky hillside, out over the stream and waterfall.

Wright designed the house down to the last detail. All the furniture is built in and cantilevered from its wall so there are no legs on anything. He even designed the lamp shades on the bed side lamps.

The only pieces that are not by Wright are ones chosen by Mrs. Kaufmann. There are only a single lounge chair and the dining room chairs. Wright even fought about having those.

It was a somewhat claustrophobic place. All the rooms were low and rather small. They said he wanted to emphasize the outdoor spaces and all the windows.

This is the view from the other side, where we started the tour. Cameras away. No backpacks, purses, water and cellphones off. No touching anything.

It really is a breathtaking place. So much attention to detail, down to specifying the direction of the grain of the wood in all the cabinets.

The staff quarters and guest house were just up the hill. that was connected by a covered set of stairs.

When the tour was over we exited through what used to be the 4 car garage, but the son turned it into an all purpose gathering room. You can still see where the garage doors used to be.

 

Some of the balconies hung out a long way. Jennie said that she read that the son, who had been an architecture student of Wright’s, hired a structural engineer that disagreed with Wright and his team about the amount of support needed. The son won.

I guess this tree was there before the house, although it looks kind of thin to be over 80 years old.

 

One final view before we went to the car to have lunch.

While we were in the car it rained for about 15 minutes and then it was back to bright sunshine. Perfect timing.

I went back to take a photosphere. I had left my phone in the car for the tour.

I think we will have to plan to come back here in another season and book the longer photography tour.

Fallingwater is just north of the state park. We headed back to the park to catch a few roadside waterfalls.

First was Cucumber Falls. The falls are below road level in a gorge. This is from part way down the path.

Father down.

A photosphere from here.

At the bottom of the path, the only way back to the falls was over the very slippery jumble of rocks. We declined.

An area just a short distance away was called the Natural Water Slides.

We should have come yesterday, when the park was packed to view some sliders. I certainly would not slide down these ranging chutes but maybe someone would have. 

There were lots of small ponds on the rocks covered in what I guess are tadpoles.

A few more pictures since it a slow picture day.

And the photosphere.

May 29 - Great Allegheny Passage Rail Trail

Not a lot of pictures today as it was a biking day. The section of the rail trail we did was not super scenic but it did run beside the river for most of the time.

We rode from Ohiopyle to Confluence, the next town eastward. Altogether we did about 35 km.

Over its length, the rail trail crosses some amazing bridges and tunnels. They are just too far apart for us to see many of them. One of them, the Salisbury Viaduct is almost 2000 feet long and very high above the ground. There also are three tunnels of almost 1000 feet.

There are two bridges near Ohiopyle. One, we walked yesterday across the river. The other one we walked underneath yesterday. It crosses the river as it completes the horseshoe bend. Before we headed east we rode over to check out the second bridge.

As you could see from yesterday’s picture, it was a long way up. Jennie stayed near one end.

On the way to Confluence, the rail trail is either a long series of straight stretches or slow curves following the river.

The shade made it just the right temperature for riding. In those few places we were in the sun it was just too hot.

We had a lot of rain last night and noticed that the river was quite swollen. As we were riding alone several emergency vehicles roared past us, with sirens and lights. I guess someone fell in. I don’t think there is rafting here so it was probably a fisherman.

Arriving in Confluence we took a short side trail into town.

We ended up at the bike store and started talking to the couple that own it. As soon as people find out we are Canadian they start quizzing us. He said his mother was from Nova Scotia and we talked about visiting there. They also have a RV and are planning a trip to Banff and Jasper this fall.

Heading back to the main trail we stopped at one of the town’s two bridges over the two branches of the river that come together here. Time for a snack and a drink.

There was a very nice view down the river.

Back in Ohiopyle, we rode over to the waterfall to see what the rain had done to it. We slept through most of it so we didn’t realize how much rain had come down. The river was just roaring.

Compared to yesterday.

And the photosphere.

We look so lonely in the campground now that the weekend is over.

May 27,28 – To Ohiopyle State Park, Pennsylvania

The night before we left Virginia Beach, this great looking RV pulled in beside us. It must be very old because that design has not been built for a great many years. The renovation job was great as it looked almost new.

Since we just cannot go on a trip without having seen a least one waterfall, we made a slight detour out of our way home to spend some time at Ohiopyle State Park.

This park had been a possible stop on our Blue Ridge Parkway trip two years ago but it got sacrificed when we ran out of time.

The trip yesterday was very long. The GPS said it should take 6 hours. With a lunch and gas stop and a few traffic slowdowns it took just over 8 hours. Traffic wasn’t too bad. I had been worried about travelling on Memorial Day Weekend especially since we had to go right by Washington DC. It was definitely slow around there but not terrible. Several times we did notice huge backups, on the other side of the road thankfully.

Our GPS has an RV mode where it knows the dimensions of out beast. When I tried to get a route it kept taking us way down around the southern end of Norfolk. In car mode it took me a much shorter way across the north side. I kept it in car mode and off we went. I now know why it was reluctant. You have to cross a very long bridge and a tunnel with a height restriction of 13’ 6”. We are only 12’ 2” but that is the only thing I can think of. I also had to stop beforehand to turn off our propane.

When it is close I always feel like the top of the RV is going to peel off.

I am missing the easy flat driving on the coast. The area we are in is called the Laurel Highlands and wow, are some of the hills steep and long. On one the hills, on the smaller highway just before we got to the campground, the RV could barely manage 10 mph crawling up.

The campground in the state park was not recommended for large RVs. Another blogger had stayed in one close by, called Yough Lake Campground, so I booked it months ago. As it is Memorial Day all I could get, even then, was a no hookup site.

The place is just packed and the sites are quite close together. Ours is at least a lakefront/view site.

The lake was created by a dam. It is long with lots of little finger bays. Pontoon boats seem to be the favourite. I think most of the people in the campground are here for the lake.

Today we drove over to the park and the town of Ohiopyle, which is the center.

Right next to town, the Youghiogheny River does a horseshoe bend around the small Ferncliff peninsula. There is also a wide waterfall.

We walked over to the state park visitors center that hangs over the river.

Along the path were these great info boards with metal sculptures on each one.

The Azaleas are starting to bloom and the Mountain Laurel are coming along.

The displays in the visitors center were very good. Lots of interaction and interesting info. Each station had a press where you made an impression of an animal on a piece of paper. Jennie collected them all.

The view back to the falls.

 

There are lots of rapids below the falls. There is a drop in point for all the rafting companies just below the visitors center.

The weather today has been everything from bright sunshine to dark with rain and thunder. We decided to do the short (1.7 miles) Ferncliff Trail, which runs around the edge of the peninsula.

The description said it was an easy trail so Jennie didn’t bring her hiking sticks. We were soon right down along the river trying to walk on all the rocks made very slippery from the rain. We carefully made our way to the opposite side of the falls.

Just before we got to the falls it started to rain. We had our rain gear but everyone else left so we had it to ourselves.

And of course a photosphere.

We must have gotten to town just before things got busy. We even got a parking spot right next to the falls. The viewing platform was a bit busier now.

When we got back from the hike the parking lot was full, with the vultures circling.

Moving on to another viewpoint we watched some fishermen reel one in.

He even put his phone down to unhook and release it.

The rest of the trail was high up on the cliff and we never really saw the river again. It’s down there somewhere.

The next part was also very muddy.

We always stop for flowers or fungus.

The trail was pretty empty except when this huge family group went by.

This chopped off tree was trying to make a comeback. Jennie was pointing to an insect on the leaf.

I guess everyone decided that this was the “carve your name” tree.

We actually missed our turn to complete the loop. In my defense it was unmarked. Once we passed under this old railway bridge I knew we had gone too far.

We found the ferns of Ferncliff.

Back in town we walked around for a while.

The general store and restaurant was, I am sure on purpose, blasting out the smoke from its BBQ.

The Great Allegheny Passage Rail Trail runs through town. It is a 150 mile long trail that runs from Pittsburgh towards the coast to the east. At its end it joins the C&O Canal Towpath that runs the rest of the 184 miles to the coast. There were lots of bikes heavily laden with camping gear in town. All of the bikes were very muddy.

I heard one of the bikers say that they got caught in a very heavy downpour. The most we had was a short shower. I think we will try to ride part of it tomorrow. Hopefully our fenders will keep some of the mud off.

We walked across river on the rail bridge that is now part of the trail.

 

The other smell around town was all the lilacs.

This mini golf place was not quite as elaborate as the ones we had seen in Myrtle Beach.

We finally succumbed and bought some BBQ (for dinner) from the yellow house in the back. Its smoker was also belching out the delicious smelling smoke.

Heading home we did a quick stop at this overlook right beside the road, after we had climbed about 1000 feet in elevation from town.

I’ll bet it would be amazing in the fall. You can just see a bit of the river in the center.