Into the Woods - Pennsylvania's Southwest

"There are no shortcuts to any place worth going." – Beverly Sills

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Southwest Pennsylvania offers scenic beauty, historical preservation, and architectural wonder. It was made to explore.

Wright designed Fallingwater in southwest PA

Teegarden Centennial Covered bridge near Lisbon, Ohio (sw of Youngstown) in route to Pennsylvania

On our way to Pennsylvania, we continued our trek through Amish country and Holmes County with a lunch stop in Berlin, Ohio. Our goal is to stay on secondary roads when time permits, and we were rewarded with beautiful scenes of well-maintained farms and delightful covered bridges. On a back road, we met up with the Teegarden Centennial Covered Bridge in eastern Ohio near Lisbon.

Our Pennsylvania home for the next couple of days would be Laurel Hills State Park near Somerset, east of Pittsburg (#laurelhillsstatepark #laurelhills). This park, among the hills and hollers of southwestern Pennsylvania, was created by the CCC (Civilian Conservation Corp) during the Depression. It features hiking trails and a beautiful waterfall along a well-marked path. This gentle stream ran behind our campsite (see in the gallery below). We spent two nights in Lot 178 in pleasant surroundings with amenities nearby. From here, we ventured out to area attractions, along with family visiting from Virginia. As RV newbies, this would be the first time in our travels that we would need heat to make it comfortably through the night. Of course, all the information learned at our two-hour orientation a month ago suddenly vanished. It was a comic event as we tripped through our options. With the outside temps around 40 degrees, I tried the heat pump, which draws power from the shore station. But the pump kept kicking out. It must have a governor that doesn't allow it to operate unless temperatures are optimal for the heat pump design. And besides, while the pump is warm when it works, it can be loud like the air conditioner and would drown out the sounds of the gentle brook behind us.

I mistakenly thought the generator was needed to run the furnace, so we fired it up and then turned on the heater. We had heat but, of course, didn't want to run the generator all night. So we turned off the two and ended up running the chassis heater for some warmth. The third night, we parked at the local Walmart parking lot and again (in our rookie mode) had to revert to using the chassis heater. It wasn't until a couple of nights later that we finally figured out that the propane furnace runs by itself and does an excellent job. Rookie mistakes are always good for a laugh as we look back on our rookie year on the open road.

We found the Lotus Grill (see photo below) and love it. It uses minimal lump charcoal

(different than normal grilling charcoal) and heats quickly with a battery-operated fan that gets a fire started quickly. The sides are cool to the touch during operations, and the cleanup is

easy with the shiny chrome interior finish that helps trap the juices. It comes in a zip-top canvas storage container, and the smaller of the four sizes available fits neatly under the Wonder's front left lower storage bin. Salmon in a foil pouch, anyone?

Frank Lloyd Wright’s iconic Fallingwater (see cover photo above) (#fallingwater) offered an enjoyable and fascinating tour of this unique blending of structure and nature. Several tours are offered, and the docents here love the privilege of showing this innovative building.

Cheesecake Your Way - Kitchen on Main

At The Kitchen on Main in nearby Ligonier (@kitchenonmain), we topped off a fantastic gourmet meal with a special cheesecake. As Sue and I couldn't decide on which kind of topping to have, they prepared a split version just for us to share. Ligonier is a delightful, historic town with boutique shopping and so much to offer, including Fort Ligonier. We'll visit again when in Pennsylvania.

Flight 93 at Shanksville, PA

The next day, we toured the Flight 93 Memorial and Museum near Stoystown, PA. This National Park site has developed into an exceptional tribute to the brave members of that fateful flight on 9/11. The marble walls display each passenger’s name, and the black walkways signify the coal fields of this reclaimed land.

In the background, you can see the Visitor Center (click photo to enlarge). The angle of the memorial wall aligns with the split in the building to indicate the final path of Flight 93. The Visitor Center offers a riveting recreation of the 9/11 tragedy.

Johnstown (PA) valley overlook

Afterwards, we traveled to the National Park Visitor Center at the Johnstown Flood Site. This was another fine museum featuring many photographs of the flood’s aftermath and an excellent film depicting the 1880 flood, which killed 2209 people in less than an hour.

On our way home to Indiana, our final stop was Grove City, Pennsylvania, a beautiful college town in northwest Pennsylvania. Here we were searching for a rather unusual landmark-a street corner in my name! A friend told me about this intersection, and we just had to check it out. As my names are not that common, it’s been fun to discover I have a landmark and now I am at one with myself Along the Pooka Trail.