Roadtrip #1 Complete

Sherry and I referred to it a few times as our practice vacation. It was a three-day jaunt to Pittsburgh. We left Friday around 10 am and returned last evening around 9 pm.

Our 700-mile weekend trip

Pittsburgh itself is a neat city. For a town as small as it is, it offers a great deal. In fact, the Zoo itself had so much to see we were there for nearly four hours, so long we had to scuttle our plans for an afternoon trip to the Carnegie Science Center.

Our trip home helped make the weekend sojourn complete. For a long time I've wanted to revisit Fallingwater and was eager for Sam and Caroline to become old enough to go there with us. It didn't disappoint. I could tell Sam enjoyed it quite a bit and Caroline said it was her favorite part of the weekend.

An architectural historian took this photo for us. It was her first visit. 

I don't know why this pose became Caroline's favorite. 

During the car ride Friday I was studying my road atlas of the state and realized that Fallingwater drew us further south than I expected, and had us tantalizingly close to Mt. Davis, Pennsyvlania's highest point. Then I found out my grandmother was visiting Uncle Larry at his house in Warfordsburg and I knew I had my opportunity to drag the family out to that trivial spot.

Mt. Davis is located near the Maryland border in State Forest land. One must follow a 2 1/2-mile gravel road to get to it. The site is inviting for visitors: parking lot, good signage, a relatively tall (and narrow) observation tower.

I was excited that there was more than just a tower there.

Sherry gives a geology lesson. 

It's a little scary to be honest.

View to the northwest.

View to the northeast.

Sherry and the kids at the southwest corner.

The kids helped make this worthwhile. Sam, for instance found something I had overlooked: the bronze marker placed by the USGS indicating it was indeed Pennsylvania's highest spot. The medallion was atop a boulder near the base of the tower: I guess the top of that bolder was the exact location. Of course, we all had to pose at it.

Again, had Sam decided not to scale that boulder, we wouldn't have known the medallion was there.

The intrepid explorer relaxes after his discovery. 

Caroline also gets credit for finding some neat stuff up there. She insisted on taking a trail a short way around the corner where there were some really good interpretive panels over there. Interpretive panels that were so good I didn't get photos of them on my phone (they're on my camera, I swear). Some of those panels told tales of the people who lived in that area, and those tales showed how rural and wilderness-y that area of the state truly is.

Okay, I used wilderness-y and "interpretive panel" in the same blog post. Obviously I'm at the end of my span for writing tonight. See you again soon.