Sunday April 19

As we were preparing to leave Front Royal, Virginia, Carson called and said that the subject of his morning’s photo shoot had postponed. He offered to take us to breakfast before we hit the road. We went to a local place and enjoyed a couple more hours together.

We then headed south toward Charlottesville, Virginia. We had a nice drive through the Virginia countryside before making our way to Thomas Jefferson’s home, Monticello, just outside Charlottesville. In the late afternoon we bought tickets for a tour of the house. In contrast to the small group tour we took at Fallingwater, we were in with about 20 others on this 45-minute tour. It was very interesting to get a view into the life of the early American Renaissance man. We intended to go into Charlottesville and drive around, since we had been told that it is a lovely old southern city. However, it was near dark and we needed to make progress toward our next destination, Columbia, South Carolina.

We headed on down the road. More rain was falling and we got tired around Lynchburg, Virginia. Unless we have planned on a specific place to stay for the night, I usually will start searching for possibilities on my iPhone. Supposedly, Lynchburg had a city park with RV parking spaces. In short, we found ourselves in what was a scary-looking neighborhood to us, or as I started repeating – “Bad town! Bars on windows! Bad town!” I don’t think they have worked all the bugs out of those online maps and directions yet. Out of there we flew to find some other free place to park. Once again we settled on a Wal-Mart parking lot. Noisy but well lit.

Saturday April 18

Today we drove most of the day working in one stop in Berkley Falls Virginia before reaching the home of our nephew, Carson, and his wife Brenda in Front Royal Virginia. They live in a community that consists of very steep winding roads and driveways that would never pass our local planning department codes!
We parked near their community clubhouse since there was no way we could get in and out of their driveway. Carson likes to scare you when he drives in to it and suggest that you hold your arms over your head like you re on a roller coaster. It worked, I was scared. I thought he was exaggerating when he said it was like a ski jump going down to the house…he was not, it is steeper.
We enjoyed a lovely dinner at the Lucky Star Café, a tour of their photography studio and a visit to their home before going back to the trailer for the night.

Friday April 17

This morning we awakened to blue skies and warm spring sunshine. The perfect day for visiting Frank Lloyd Wright’s Fallingwater house near Mill Run Pennsylvania. We went ahead and splurged for the “in-depth” tour which allowed us access to a couple of rooms that are not on the usual tour as well as the opportunity to take photographs throughout the house. I am not allowed to post those pictures but will share them another time. Eight of us were lead on the two hour tour by a woman named Uta who was not only well read on Wright’s work, but passionate about the preservation of it. The home was built in the 1930’s for a wealthy Pittsburg family. I have always admired Wright’s style and have visited several homes he designed and built but not until this one did I grasp what a genius the man really was.

Down the road a bit we visited a second, less famous, Wright house named Kentuck Knob. This home was easier to imagine oneself living in but had the same attention to detail and functionality throughout. This was a much shorter tour and afterwards we took a walk through a meadow filled with interesting sculptures from the owner’s private collection, including three-foot wide section of the Berlin wall.

We visited the little tourist/whitewater rafting village of Ohiopyle before returning home for the night.