Road Trip '09 - Part Three - Heading Home

With fresh brewed coffee from Elinor's kitchen in our travel cups, we set off early Thursday morning for western Pennsylvania and a tour of Frank Lloyd Wright's Fallingwater. Our AAA triptik routed us back to Baltimore and then had us retrace our route west on I-70 and I-68. Getting around Baltimore was ugly and slow, but soon enough we were cruising westward toward wide open spaces.

It was an easy drive, and we arrived around noon. Carol and I have wanted to visit Fallingwater for years, but it is aclassic "out of the way" place. The Kaufmans, for whom Wright built Fallingwater, wanted it as a getaway spot, and it has remained that to this day. It is about sixty miles from Pittsburgh, where the Kaufmans lived, and near absolutely nothing. If we had planned on getting a motel in the area, we would have been disappointed.

Carol and I have seen several of Wright's buildings, but we were not prepared for the stunning beauty of this place. The Kaufman's were not only richer than God and thus able to pretty much give Wright a blank check; but they also had good taste and were strong enough personalities that they could work with Wright, who was not an easy man to work with. This, combined with an achingly beautiful setting among hundreds (?) of acres of forested hills, led to what I think must be Frank Lloyd Wright's masterpiece. I'm not going to describe it. Google it, or better yet, find a good book about it and see for yourself. I'll just say that the tour made my heart race. Photography was not permitted inside the house, so I settled for just being there, taking it all in with my eyes and allowing myself to imagine living there. They have longer, pricier tours on which photos may be taken, so I now have a reason to return. Perhaps I could combine it with a trip to the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown.

You've no doubt seen this photo before. The forest is so dense at Fallingwater that this is really the only place to get an open view of the house.

After our tour, we hit the road for a few hours. We bypassed Zelienople, Damascus, Chagrin Falls and Cuyahoga Falls before stopping in Streetboro, Ohio, for the night. Tomorrow we would head for Midland, Michigan to visit Marcella and Bob Lachance.

We spent two nights with our friends, who did a good job of showing us their pleasant town and making us think, "Oh, this would be a nice place to live." Midland is the archetypical midwestern town - well-trimmed, clean, family-centered attractions - but we won't really be moving there. Like Minneapolis, it has significant winter. But for the two May days that we visited, it was lovely. We rode bicycles and walked (surprise!). We toured the Alden Dow House and Dow Gardens. (I should mention that Midland is the home of Dow Chemical. Although Dow now employs hundreds where it once employed thousands, Midland is still very much a company town.)

Alden Dow was many things in his life, one of which was an architect who studied and worked with Frank Lloyd Wright. His home and work studio clearly show the influence of Wright. Where Wright sought to make his homes blend with the surrounding landscape in all aspects, Dow departs from Wright and fills his house with bright colors.

You wouldn't find anything like this at Fallingwater.

Dow Gardens, a gem of an attraction for the residents of Midland.

Fellow midwesterners, Marcella & Bob (in the Dow House)

When we weren't touring Midland with Bob and Marcella, we spent lots of time talking, covering large topics and small. Carol and Marcella of course rehashed a good part of their high school years. On the final evening of Road Trip '09, we had a delicious dinner at Café Zinc in downtown Midland. Café Zinc could hold its own with any of our favorite restaurants in Minneapolis. Afterward, we strolled the length of Main Street on a perfect spring evening. We walked all the way to the edge of town, where we saw up close the town's minor league ballpark, home of the Great Lakes Loons.

And then it was time to go home. I was more than ready. Our final adventure would be taking the ferry from Ludington, Michigan, to Manitowoc, Wisconsin. The four-hour passage didn't save us much time, but it was much more fun than four hours of driving around Chicago.

Our ferry's twin sister, as seen from the upper deck

Leaving Michigan

Road Trip '09, Part Two - Family

On Friday, the sixth day of our travels, we slipped out of Washington, avoiding the worst of rush hour traffic. We headed north on the Baltimore-Washington Parkway and then on Route 1, treating ourselves to lovely countryside and missing virtually all of the heavy truck traffic that keeps to Interstate 95.

We arrived at our destination in the early afternoon. No, not Swarthmore, where Aunt Elinor and Steph live. Our first stop was Anna's Delicatessen on MacDade Blvd. to get our lunch - genuine Philly cheesesteaks and hoagies. These delicacies are not my reason for returning to Philadelphia, but a visit here would be less than complete without consuming at least one hoagie and one cheesesteak. (There are no substitutes, no matter what the menus of restaurants around the country claim.)

We devoted the next two days to visiting with Elinor, Steph, Ed and Barb. Elinor and Steph are the grandes dames of our family. Age has slowed them down a bit physically; although they still enjoy attending the opera, visiting with friends and eating in restaurants. (I think there is not a restaurant in a ten-mile radius of their home at which they have not eaten.) Although the don't move as quick as they used to, they both retain their avid interest in the world around them and are not shy at all about sharing their views. I have always been in awe of their fantastic memories and their ability to recount stories from years past, full of intricate details and insights. Elinor and Steph are great raconteurs who can entertain for hours with their tales of places they've been, things they've done and most importantly family history. We were graced with many of their memories over the next two days.

Elinor and Steph, still going strong.

We got to spend one pleasant evening with Ed and Barb. I wish it could have been more. They took us to dinner at a favorite spot of theirs, and then we returned to their home to stretch the evening as long as we could. We got to catch up on one another's lives. Barb has been waging a battle with cancer for ten years now in her own quiet and heroic way. In recent months, the doctors have ordered an increase in her chemotherapy treatments that place a greater demand on her strength. She rests for a day or so after her treatment, then is up and active again, refusing to let her illness hold her down. She still works, part-time, at the police station that was Ed's workplace for over forty years.

Barb loves to travel, and the new regimen of chemotherapy has taken that opportunity away from her for the time being. We're hoping that soon she also will be on the road again.

My brother, Ed, and sister-in-law, Barb

It wasn't all visiting during those two days. We walked, of course. We saw a good deal of Swarthmore, a pretty town with grand old homes that are shaded by mature trees. We walked past 208 Harvard Avenue, the home where my father, Elinor and their sisters grew up. We wandered the campus of the college and checked out the opening day of their farmers' market. We bought some cookies from a baker, the minister's wife whom we met the night before when out to dinner with Elinor and Steph. She assured us that the tiny market was much more lively later in the summer, when local crops will be abundant.

The Brandywine River Museum

We spent a pleasant afternoon at the Brandywine River Museum, a lovely small museum on the banks of the river that features the artwork of the Wyeth family. By happy coincidence we got to see a special exhibit of the quirky and whimsical artist, Richard Gorey.

And before we knew it, we were heading for Wildwood Villas, home of my sister, Joan, and Wally, the most famous of the Burgett outlaws. (Wally some years ago dubbed Barb, Carol and himself the "outlaws." It stuck.)

My sister, Joan, and the "Outlaw"

The Villas and nearby Cape May is a favorite spot for me. It's just such a pretty place. So we did what people do when they find themselves in pretty places. We saw as much of it as we could. Joan and Wally live in a quiet neighborhood, just a five-minute walk from the Delaware Bay. When Carol and I visit, we somehow find our feet taking us toward the bay each evening when the sun is low in the sky.

This is what draws us to the bay in the evenings.

Sometimes we get silly. No spouses were harmed in the making of this photo.

Joan and Wally gave us a nice tour of Cape May, culminating with dinner at the Wharf and an opportunity for Carol and me to have fresh seafood (almost as important as the hoagies and cheesesteaks).

The Whar...f Restaurant

Cape May Lighthouse

The old concrete ship, near the lighthouse, was one of a few built in the early twentieth century. They actually made some successful crossings of the Atlantic. (Really!) This one was sunk deliberately. (I don't know why. What else can you do with a concrete ship you don't want any more?) Time and tide have taken their toll. I remember seeing the remains of a ship here as a boy; now it's not much more than this ruin, although the sea birds seem to find it appealing.

The flower shop is next door to the gourmet cheese shop. This little patch of Cape May put is in mind of Dordogne.

On Wednesday, day twelve of our trip, it was time to say good-bye to Joan and Wally. The plan was to return to Swarthmore, spend the night with Elinor and Steph and get an early start the following day for our drive to Fallingwater. Elinor and Steph's condo was off limits for the day (contractors working), and Elinor and Steph were out on their own. So we took advantage of the open day to hop on the commuter train to downtown Philly for a day in the city.

It was lovely! We walked down busy and beautiful Benjamin Franklin Parkway to the Philadelphia Museum of Art, where we had tickets to see the "Cezanne and Beyond" exhibition. The Cezanne exhibit was wonderful, but we were disappointed that the photography galleries were temporarily closed. We consoled ourselves with a pretty good lunch at the museum cafeteria before returning to the train station via the walking path along the Schuykill River.

"Rocky's" view of Philadelphia, from the steps of the art museum. No, we did not run up the steps. There were plenty of twenty-somethings present taking care of that.

The walk along the river was charming. Philadelphia has really done a good job of making itself attractive to visitors. We promised ourselves that we will spend more time downtown when we next visit.

Carol and I had discovered earlier in the week the Bistro on the Brandywine. Barb, we knew, would be resting after her chemotherapy session. We called Ed at the last minute, and he joined us for dinner there. A very nice place. The three of us had a good time together.

The following morning we departed, glad to have had precious time with family and eager to continue our adventure. I'll write about the return home in Part Three, coming soon.

Road Trip '09, Part One - On the Road

The most important journeys in our lives always seem to involve family and friends. So it was with our Road Trip '09. Family was calling. The need to see loved ones face to face, to embrace, to tell our stories and to laugh together was strong. Carol suggested that we forsake the airlines, make it a road trip. This surprised the heck out of me, because Carol is the first to tell you that she hates riding in the car. Family can be surprising.

The appeal of a road trip was strong. We could see friends along the way whom we haven't seen in years. We could at long last visit Frank Lloyd Wright's Fallingwater. We could take in the beauty of the American landscape. So, on May 9, our journey began.

The Wisconsin River at daybreak, Portage, Wisconsin

Our first stop would be Dayton, Ohio, to see our friends, Ken and Emelda Dahms. Minneapolis to Dayton was the longest stretch of the two-week trip, so we left home a day early. After we left Rowdie with Joanna, Bob and all the dogs with the assurance that we would return and she would once again be the princess, we set out midday to knock off a couple hours of driving. This plan got us to Portage, WI, a gem of a small town in the beautiful rolling hills near the Wisconsin Dells. We had a good dinner, a good night's sleep, and a good look at the well-kept old village when we departed early the next morning. As a bonus, we earned 490 Super 8 Motel points and were treated to the stunning sunrise view as we crossed the bridge on our way out of town.

Our first full day's drive took us through the expanse of farmlands of Indiana and gradually into the hills of western Ohio. Someone once described the sensation of driving across the vastness of flat terrain as a feeling of standing still. The land is so open and you can see so far that you feel suspended in space and even time. You can't allow yourself to be in a hurry on this kind of journey. You let your mind and your heartbeat slow, and you take it all in. You talk to your companion, but more often there is quiet. You have time to think all the grand thoughts and all the small ones that you care to entertain. Oh, and when you've have enough of all that, you put disc one of your book-on-tape into the CD player. Then disc two, disc three, four, five, and...

At the end of the day, we followed Emelda's excellent directions downhill on a country road, turned left onto the gravel road just before the new bridge, meandered a few hundred yards through woodlands next to a small creek and found ourselves at the home of our longtime friends.

Ken & Emelda Dahms, our friends for many years

Have you ever experienced a reunion with friends whom you haven't seen in years and you just fall into an easy camaraderie as if you have lived all that time as neighbors on the same block? This was how it was with Ken and Emelda. We gave and received the first embraces of our two-week journey, were given cold drinks (ahhh! A beer after a long day in the car!), and fell into animated conversation that was more or less uninterrupted over the next day and a half together.

Ken and Emelda treated us like visiting royalty, showing us their favorite restaurants, taking us on a lovely hike through the Ohio countryside, showing us all the points of interest in the region and on their property and all the while making sure of our comfort. What I'll remember most of this visit was the lively conversations, which seemed to be nonstop. We talked politics, social policy, sports, family, work, retirement and a few dozen other topics. Ken has always possessed an inquisitive mind and an irrepressible desire (need?) to share his ideas and find out what yours are. So it was always a lively time.

Ken and Emelda bought their small home on several wooded acres in rural Ohio thirty years ago. Over time, Cincinnati to the south and Dayton to the north continued to expand until the once bucolic countryside has been overrun with residential subdivisions, malls, convenience stores and the other signs of unrelenting growth. Over that same time, our friends have bought a couple acres here and a couple there, so that their home is a true retreat from all the modern hubbub. You can look out of any one of the many uncurtained windows of their home and see nothing but trees. If you stay longer than Carol and I were able, say thirty years or so, you grow familiar with foxes, deer, raccoons and numerous other creatures of the forest. You learn the names of dozens of varieties of birds that are your most frequent visitors. Just up the hill from their kitchen window is a residential subdivision; if you try very hard, you can just make out a patch of roof of one house. A short walk will take you to the road which is busy with commuters in the morning and evening. If you try very hard, you still cannot see or hear the road with its activity.

We were up and out the door, coffee cups in hand, early Tuesday morning. Our next stop would be Washington, D.C. Today's drive would take us over four hundred miles through the old worn-down mountains of eastern Ohio, western Pennsylvania and Maryland, different terrain from the farmland we had crossed two days previously.

The Youghiogheny Reservoir in western Pennsylvania
(If you think you can pronounce that, let us know.)

More than once on our drive we noted the similarity of the countryside to that of la Dordogne. I admit that this required a bit of imagination, but the likeness was there. Missing, of course, were the thousand-year old churches and chateaux, the small villages nearly as old and the tiny restaurants that invite (almost demand) that the traveler stop and sample their unique and tasty offerings. This reflection would bring a smile to our faces and a bit of silent reflection of our time there last fall.

Along our route, we couldn't help but notice the baseball fields. From the highway we saw the minor league park of the Washington, Pennsylvania, Wild Things. In virtually every smaller town we spotted the playing fields of the children, perhaps among them a future major leaguer or two.

As the day rolled on, an unmistakeable change occurred all around us. Long stretches of pastoral scenery became punctuated more frequently with larger and larger towns. The highway grew crowded. Our heart rates ticked up a notch as we had to pay a little more attention. We were in the East.

Soon, Interstate 495, the D.C. Beltway, sucked us into its frantic midday flow of traffic, spitting us out just as quickly onto Connecticut Avenue. We were in our old stomping grounds. Then we were turning left on Porter Road, crossing Rock Creek Park and entering Mount Pleasant, our home for four years in the 1970's. We parked in front of 1811 Lamont Street, NW, got out of the car and stretched mightily and knocked on the door of our former neighbor and still good friend, Wolsey Semple. Ferocious barking greeted us. Through sheer curtains we could see gaping jaws and sharp teeth just itching to get at us. Wolsey's German Shepherd, Othello, was doing his job, and doing it well. Then the door opened. Wolsey welcomed us once again into his home. Seeing his master embrace us in welcome was good enough for Othello. We became his new best friends, just like that. From that moment on, he permitted us to scratch his ear, rub his back and take him for walks whenever we wished.

Hanging out at Mama Ayesha's with Wolsey

Our old neighborhood. Some things never change.

Over the next two days Carol and I roamed the neighborhood and the city on our own. In the evening we'd meet up with Wolsey for dinner and conversation. There are countless high quality restaurants in Washington, but on our trips back there, we always end up at Mama Ayesha's. In her day, Mama served up cheap, delicious Middle Eastern cuisine. She used only fresh produce from her farm in Virginia. The restaurant wasn't much to look at back then, but you could always count on a good meal and a good time with friends there. Mama is long gone, but her family still runs the place. They've jazzed up the facade and the interior, and nudged the prices up a bit, but the food is still great and it's still a good deal. Wolsey told our waiter that we were visitors from the Midwest and had frequented the restaurant many years ago. Our waiter, Mama's grandson, is twenty-eight, Ellen's age. He wasn't born when we were on the scene.

Mama Ayesha's, a favorite of ours since forever.

Washington has changed a lot since we lived there. On Wednesday morning, we walked ten minutes to the Metro station on 14th Street. In the seventies, 14th Street was a place you steered clear of, a burned out remnant of the riots of the sixties. Now it is teeming with traffic, both motorized and pedestrian. The streets are lined with upscale condominiums, coffee shops and trendy stores. There is even a Target store.

We boarded a Metro train, and eleven minutes later emerged from underground onto the Mall! No traffic snarls. No parking woes. We spent the entire day on the Mall reveling in being the tourists we tolerated with disdain so many years ago. We spent most of our time at the National Gallery of Art, drawn by the desire to see its newest building, designed by I.M. Pei. I also wanted to visit Salvador Dali's Last Supper. When we lived in Washington, I would make my way from time to time to the National Gallery for the sole purpose of standing and studying this amazing painting. It used to hang by itself in a grand stairwell. Now it is found, still in solitary splendor, on the lower level next to the elevators. The painting's unlikely showplace is not an insult to the artist, as it would first appear to a visitor who comes across it in its out-of-the-way corner. The people who donated the painting to the National Gallery did so on the condition that it would always be displayed in a setting where it apart from other works of art.

The National Gallery of Art addition, designed by I.M. Pei

An Alexander Calder mobile in the foyer of the new building.

Outside the National Gallery of Art.

Springtime in Washington, D.C.

It was a beautiful day on the Mall.

After touring the National Gallery, we grabbed a snack in the cafeteria. It was about eleven a.m., and the cafeteria has only just opened. A handful of tourists were there when we arrived. Ahead of us in line was an older man dressed in what I would call a $1,500 lobbyist's suit. He ordered a sandwich and a split of champagne. When he handed the cashier a hundred dollar bill, she said she could not make change. He reached into his pocket and extracted a thick roll of bills, fingered through them but was unable to find anything smaller! His credit card saved the day.

After our snack, we took in the new American Indian Museum, another stunning addition to the Smithsonian. Like the many other Smithsonian Museum buildings, a person could spend weeks absorbing all that it has to offer. The museum's stellar cafeteria offered Native American cuisine, with offerings from each of the many geographical regions inhabited by various tribes. The plank-roasted salmon from the Pacific Northwest was nothing less than irresistible, but we left with the desire to return and try each of the regions.

If you asked me what my favorite city in the world is, I'd answer without hesitation, Paris. But I must add that Washington, D.C., takes second place. No other city comes close. (Okay. I'm not the greatest of world travelers, and I haven't seen all that many cities, but I still mean it.) It's not coincidental that Washington was designed by a Frenchman, Pierre L'Enfant, and that its layout mimics that of Paris with its many traffic circles. D.C. is a lovely city, with an international flavor and a pulsing excitement that are hard to match. What sets Paris and Washington apart, for me, is that they are both places where I would be satisfied to do nothing other than walk about their streets. Well, that and eat in their restaurants. But that is all I would need to do.