Wildlife and scenery.

Alaska is big. I mean really big. Britian is about 80 thousand square miles, France 210 thousand sq miles. Alaska covers almost 700 thousand sq miles. We were told it is full of wild life, to watch for bears and moose on the highways. Did we see any? Did we heck! That's not entirely true. We did see Brown and Black bears as well as moose, musk ox (which is neither an ox or has musk glands) wolves and bison at the Alaska Wildlife Conservation Centre. The highlight of the trip was the baton twirling Black bear, no picture unfortunately. 

Alaska doesn't disappoint on the scenery front though. We have seen calving glaciers and more mountains than you can shake a stick at.

The pictures don't do it justice. 

Homer, no Simpsons

One of the main reasons for coming to Alaska was to see bears. We had booked a very expensive day trip to do just that in Homer. Mother Nature had other ideas. The trip involved crossing the water to the national park but out of nowhere it got very windy. So the trip was cancelled just as we arrived in Homer. Homer is not a big place, however it makes up for that with stunning scenery and lots of charm. Highlights included, a marvellous  view,

good food

and rustic charm.

The local museum was small but packed with info on the natural environment, early European settlers and the Exon Valdez disaster where more than 10 million US gallons of oil was spilt into the Alaskans waters. The area covered was equivalent to the whole of the east coast of the US. While all looks OK now, look below the surface and the oil is still there. 

We filled our day and were better informed about oil disasters so all was not lost.

Anchored down in Anchorage

It has been a while since I last wrote a blog post. That doesn't mean we haven't been traveling. Just I got lazy. Hubby and I are now retired so hope to do as much traveling as possible. So where to start? Alaska was not somewhere that immediately came into my head but Brother in Law wanted to see bears to celebrate his 60th birthday.  COVID got in the way but here we are at last. 

We arrived in Anchorage after an 8 hour flight from New York, 3,000 miles and a 4 hour time difference and we are still in the U.S. (OK Canada did squeeze in between). Anchorage has a strange feel to it. It is very open and spread out. It does not feel as if you are in a town. So what did we do on our day there? We left the town and went to the Alaska Native Heritage Centre. Here we saw some amazing young men demonstrating the "games" played by native Alaskans to develop strength and balance needed to hunt. This involved various ways of jumping. From a standing jump, to a sort of triple jump and vertical  jumps while aiming to hit a ball suspended from a frame. 

There was also a dance demonstration with women of all ages dancing while the men drummed and sang. 

There are reproductions of houses from the various tribes. Most seemed to be underground or covered with earth, which makes sense when you think how cold it gets here. The guide was a native woman who spoke about her philosophy and how the native people were treated by the government  (yes, as bad as you imagine).

The bones are the jaw bones of a Bowhead whale. 

Lunch was in a brewhouse which was very lively and the food was good. 

The others did a trolly bus tour which took in a park showing the effects of the 1964 earthquake. Unfortunately, I started to feel a bit unwell so missed this.  

A day with Frank

The famous Frank Lloyd Wright house near Pittsburgh is Fallingwater.  We had visited there a number of years ago so we went to a different park which has four houses, two by Wright and two by one of his students. I know nothing about architecture, but even I have heard of Frank Lloyd Wright. What makes Polymath Park unique, is that you can stay overnight in the houses. We left it too late to book one, but the tours were fantastic. Two houses were built there and two were moved stone by stone, and rebuilt in the park. The houses were part of Wright’s Usonian design, the idea being you bought the plans from him. He would tell you how to orientate the building on the site. After that it was up to you  to build it. The Duncan house is one of these. The plan cost $15,000 back in the day, but the final cost was $67,000. A lot of money then, so these houses were well out of reach of their supposed client group, the average family.

After touring three houses we had a lovely lunch and headed into the mountains to Kentuck Knob . This was one of his last houses, and the owners got more concessions out of him than he normally allowed. He never visited the house. It is now owned by a Brit who has put red telephone boxes in the art park.

What did I learn about Lloyd Wright design? He loved the “compression and release “ concept, (low ceiling entrance into a high ceiling room). He designed for short people! He hated clutter, so there a lots of cupboards built in. He liked ridiculously narrow doors and he hated garages. The way the buildings sit in the landscape is lovely, and will never date. Next time maybe we will stay in one, just to see how liveable  they actually are.

Pittsburgh PA

The heat has been unbelievable. Even the locals have been complaining, so of course it makes perfect  sense to spend one of the hottest evenings sitting in a baseball stadium. We had been invited to a tailgate before the game. It is basically a BBQ in a car park. The best thing about it was discovering the cooling property of ice down your bra! The game was exciting and the Pirates won. People are passionate about the game, it still looked like rounders to me, but any game is rather silly when you break it down.

After the heat came the rain. By rain , I mean it came down by the bucketload. You got soaked to the skin in seconds, but once it stops you soon dry off. We spent one wet day at the Phipps Consevatory . It is a big botanic garden mostly under glass. It was almost as wet indoors as it was outside. They were running a Van Gough exhibition which was interesting.

On the outskirts of the city is an historic site called Old Economy Village.  It is where the most successful Lutheran sect from Germany finally settled. They came to wait for the Second Coming, but in the meantime set themselves up to be as independent as possible. They were known as the Harmony Society. You gave over everything you had when you joined and promised to work for the good of all the members. In return the society would house, feed, clothe and look after your health. They set up cotton mills and were rebound for the cloth they made.There are fascinating dye sample books in the museum which I would have loved to have a proper look at. They also made wine and spirits which the did drink some themselves, the rest they sold. In fact they were very good at making money. If you decided to leave the society, you were given back what you came with. They lived in brick built houses and had access to education for both the mind and the soul. The society had the first orchestra in the USA. Communal feats were held a number of times during the year. When the
founder George Rapp died, a huge sum of gold was found in his basement, in fact there was more
gold than in the government reserve. The society eventually died out in the early 1900s. The last  two members wound up the society and left with over $75 million. The village is very well worth a visit if you are in the area. The history is fascinating and the buildings well preserved. Some of the original houses are still lived in by modern families.

Into Pennsylvania

Little Sis has been traveling to Pittsburgh on a regular basis for more than 25 years. Every time she travels along Route 80 she has seen a sign for Penn Cave but has never visited, until now. The cave is actually about 50 miles from the sign. This meant leaving the highway and travelling along small roads through farmland. It is always much more interesting a few miles from the major routes. What was a surprise was to see Amish men working in the fields. They were turning the hay using 4 mules to pull a machine. We also saw a couple of women weeding their gardens. My first reaction was, wow let's get a picture, but then I began to think about this. How would I feel if a complete stranger started taking photos of me going about my every day life? I'm not sure I would like it very much. No photos were taken and we continued on to the cave. 

It was a surprise to see so many visitors there as really there didn't seem to be much else in the area. The cave trip is on a boat , which is unusual. It was a relief to be in the cool cave as the temp has been in the 90's since we got here. It had the usual stalactites and other formations you expect. It was a nice trip but nothing particularly amazing. What was interesting was the group of Amish men, women and children who were obviously on a day out. The women wore blues and greens and the men's shirts were blue, green and orange. They made a colourful group.

Brother in law (BIL) had booked us into a B&B near State College called Boalsburgh. This turned out to be a gem of a place just off the highway. It Is a place time has forgotten. The B&B was a Victorian era home and practically across the road was a tavern from the 1800's. Best of all , the house had a wrap around porch. It has always been a dream of mine to sit on a rocking chair on one of these porches. It was the perfect end to the day. The evening was warm but not hot and I sat watching the lighting in the distance compete with the fireflies . Perfect.

Yonkers.

Yonkers is somewhere I had heard of, but had no real idea where it was. It is mentioned in the film Hello Dolly . I was looking for something a bit different to do and the Untermeyer Garden in Yonkers came up, so of course we had to go investigate. The garden had been left to the State but had been allowed to deteriorate as its upkeep was seen as being too expensive. Now , however it is in the process of being restored. We went along with no expectations and it was on the way to my nephews house. It has been very hot since we got here, and that day was no exception. To be honest the outside was not promising, but we were met by a lovely lady who gave us a map and told us the best route to follow. We headed towards the walled garden and walked through the gate into a little piece of Paradise.

The sound of running water and the shade from the trees was just perfect on a hot day. The garden was immaculate. Two gardeners were there , working in the heat, weeding and raking the gravel paths. After having a good look around, we walked down the 100 steps to a wonderful view overlooking the Hudson River. Luckily the walk back was through a small wood and the shade was wonderful. There is still a lot of work to do, but if you are ever near Yonkers, it is well worth a visit.