Remembering my wanderings – Part 6

It was time to start heading home, but we were in no hurry and we really didn’t want to go back the way we came.  Those terrible rough roads in Indiana and Ohio just about shook us apart and anyway I wanted to see some scenery instead of mostly flat farm land.  Illinois was the only state that had some good scenery and just a few spots in other states.  I decided to go home the long way around down through West Virginia, Kentucky, Tennessee, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, and back into East Texas.  So we started out.  Didn’t go far the first day and stayed in an RV park in Pennsylvania that was located along a pretty creek:

It was nicely wooded with large camping spots:

 

But the next morning we woke up to rain.  For all of you who live in Texas and are trying to survive the drought and don’t remember what rain is, I took some pictures of it for you:

Just for your information, we drove through lots of rain, some really heavy, between Pennsylvania and Texas, but just as soon as we crossed the Texas line, the rain abruptly stopped.

 

 

We went around the east side of Pittsburgh, trying to stay away from the worst of the urban areas. I personally do not like cities. Villages are OK and small towns are passable, but cities I can’t stand. Doesn’t the view out my side window look better than tall buildings?

We saw lots of wind turbine blades on trucks in south western Pennsylvania and north eastern West Virginia.  We never seemed to have the camera available when one was spotted.  This is the best picture that we got and it only shows part of it.  They are a lot longer than the ones one the turbines here in Texas.



We actually spotted some wind turbines on a hill:

Did you see them?  If not, here is a cropped and enlarged view:

 

Continuing on I-79 somewhere in southwest PA or eastern WV.

And a typical hill-side farm:

And three crosses on a hill.  We see these same exact type crosses all across the country.

And just to be mean to my fellow Texans, I am going to leave you with this last picture of one of the many rain storms we passed through.  This one was in the mountains of West Virginia.

 

More to come, and I hope I am not boring you.  You all have great day now, you hear?  We are off to the flea market.

Remembering my wanderings – Part 5

It was time to leave Butler and head for East Brady and the Allegheny River for the reunion picnic at my cousin’s home along the river.  On the way, my wife snapped some pictures of the typical landscapes and the untypical stuff that we might see.  This is typical farmland:

Now this building that is for sell is not so typical.  It looks like it has its own oil well.  Pennsylvania has the first oil well ever drilled, Drakes well.  I saw it many years ago when I was a boy.  And no, I didn’t see it working, I am not THAT OLD!!!  Pennsylvania was and still is an oil and gas producing state.

A little further down the road and she tried to get a picture of a wooden railroad bridge, but I got my big old nose in the way.

Here is a cropped close-up:

And a little more of the typical views for that area; something we don’t see around here where I live:

This next picture is when we got to the farm that you could see in the distance in the above picture:

Here was our first glimpse of the river:

And a view looking up river as we drove up along side of it:

We had a great time at the reunion.  There were about 60 people there and most of them brought food.  Here is a picture of one of my cousins from Greenville cooking for all of us:

My aunt escaped from the nursing home and came to the picnic.  She said she was going to do it and she did.  She spent the entire day there and late into the night.  Before she left she got to see fireworks over the river.  This pictures shows her talking to my wife.  She also had a wet towel over her head because of the severe heat that day.

This is one of many group pictures that were taken.  Bet you can’t pick me out from all my relatives. . .

One last bit of information that you probably don’t care about, but I do.  My cousin from Virginia came up and brought his father’s (my uncle’s) old Gibson guitar that he purchased back in the 1930’s.  Wow, just to hold it gave me the chills.  What a thrill.  I tuned it up with my electronic tuner and played it.  A wonderful climax to a wonderful reunion.  Thanks Jim for allowing me the privilege, not only of touching and seeing it, but to play it.  Here is a picture of my cousin and his wife:

Next blog will be starting home by the southern route.  You all have a great day now, you hear?

Remembering my wanderings – Part 4

I took this trip for many reasons; to attend the reunion picnic, to visit my Aunt, to see my wife’s relatives, and to see old friends. Sort of like a trip back memory lane, but boy how things have changed. One morning I made an appointment to meet with one of my old high-school teachers, who became a friend and a fellow “ham”, and he was also the fellow who sold our house after we moved out of Pennsylvania. We have been in contact via email and ham radio, but haven’t seen each other in person for almost 50 years. I tried to meet with him on a couple of trips I took back home but ran out of time and never did. This year would change all that. Of course, we had to ask each other if we were who we were, since we both had changed considerable and we would not have recognized each other if we were sitting on the same bench.



We met at the County Kitchen restaurant and had breakfast and coffee and conversation. I really enjoyed that meeting and hope he did too. Here is a picture that the waitress took of us both:

On the way there I drove by what used to be my in-law's old house.  It sits on about three acres or so on a corner across the road from the airport.  Here is a picture of the rear of the house:

And one from the front:

Directly behind me when I took that picture was the airport. It now has a fence all around it and a business jet was just fixing to take off. In the old days there were no fences and my father-in-law would taxi his plane over to the front yard to wash it and clean it out.



I also went to see my wife’s and my old house, since it was in Country Club Heights just behind the Country Kitchen where we had breakfast. It was such a mess and run down that I couldn’t stand to look at it. I did get to say hello to a couple of old neighbors.


That evening, we went to see my wife’s last surviving Aunt and also got to visit with wife’s cousin and brother’s family. This is a picture going up their driveway. The Y to the left goes to her aunts home and the Y to the right goes to her cousins home.

And here is her aunt’s home:

My wife’s cousin raises Arabian horses as a hobby and has done so for most of her life.  She is a down to earth girl who is easy to talk to and friendly to all.  Here is a picture of her (in orange) showing a couple of her horses to the girls:

And a couple more of the horses:

I am going to end this blog with a picture of my wife’s Aunt, her daughter, and my wife’s nieces.  This represents the 1^st, 2^nd, and 4^th generations.

More to come and you all have a good day now, you hear?

Remembering my wanderings – Part 3 of ?

I made a mistake in my blog when I told you our departure date. It was Friday the 8th of July, not Sunday.



If you have been reading my blog, you know what happened next at the Buttercup Woodlands Campground near Butler. The storm that would eventually cost the camp ground over two million in damages. Here is link to my old blog: http://dizzydick.blogspot.com/2011/07/wondering-how-bad-was-it.html


Here is a link to a news video of the day after. I checked it and it is still an active link:


http://www.wpxi.com/video/28591341/index.html?taf=burg


Where I live here in Texas, it is flat. The towns are flat and the cities are flat, only the freeways going up over each other give the feeling of hills. Pennsylvania is not flat and neither are the towns. I grew up about 8 miles or so south of Butler, PA, which was the closest town. We didn’t get too many pictures of the town, but let me give you a tour of it with what we got. Let us start on Main Street:

And the

Butler County Court

House:

Going up the hill on our way to visit my wife’s brother.  This picture does not do the hill justice.  It is a lot steeper than it looks.

I think this picture will give you some idea of the hill and a good view of the houses perched on the side of it.

This picture was taken on our return to the campground.  Little did we know that this little sprinkle of rain had turned the campground upside down.  (Well almost, anyway.)  This is near the top of the hill starting down, and yes, there are lots of curves.

This picture was taken a little farther down the hill.

To get out of Butler, you almost have to go up a hill.  There is only one major road out of town that doesn’t go up a hill and that is Route 8 south to Pittsburgh, but a few miles out of town it does goes up a big hill.  This picture is going down the hill opposite the other hill in the pictures above.  At the bottom you can either go into town or cross the viaduct to route 8.

This is what you see if you come from route 8 and cross the viaduct I was just talking about.  The old four story grey stone office building (about the center of the picture) is about all that is left of the Pullman-Standard plant.  My office was in that building.  The car manufacturing plant that was there was the second largest building under one roof in the USA at that time.  At least that is what we were told.  It was huge and losing it, the country lost a lot of jobs and a lot of manufacturing power.  When we were in full production, we kept three to four steel mills busy just supplying us with the raw steel.

I could go on and on, but I think this is enough for one day.

You all have a good day now, you hear?

Reviewing my wanderings, Part 2 of ?

On of the two main goals of this trip was to spend some time with my Aunt.  She is a sharp lady and has a great sense of humor.  Here is a picture of me and her sharing a laugh.  It is hard to tell which on is the oldest:

Saturday morning, July 16^th, we headed off for Butler, PA and stayed there for six nights.  First off when we got there, my brother-in-law and his wife came to see us and then my old buddy that I grew up with and his wife came to see us.  He was going into the hospital in Pittsburgh the next day for knee surgery and this was the only chance we had to visit.  He also brought his guitar and I dug out my old Ovation and we sat around and did some picking and grinning.  Must not have been too bad, didn’t run any other campers out of the park.  Here is his picture:

On Sunday afternoon, my wife’s brother’s family planned a picnic on the shore of Lake Arthur in Moraine State Park.  It was a nice day although the temperatures were starting to get high enough to remind me of home.  I left the Jeep at the RV Park and took the RV to the lake so that the dogs could come a long and have a cool place to stay.  Here is a picture of my brother-in-law.  He is now into golf along with some flying and they are leaving for Europe to visit with his other son’s family who now live and work there.

And here is my sister-in-law with two of her grand-daughters:

This picture is of their youngest son, his two daughters, and my wife and I.

Lake Arthur is quite large and has a lot of fingers; a lot of square miles of boating and fishing there.  There is also a 20 or 25 hp limit to motor boats.  We saw a lot of kayakers, canoes, and sailboats.  It was originally carved out by a glacier.

Zoom in on this picture and you can see a guy sitting on the pier fishing.

I took these last two pictures for SixBears.  There were a lot of sailboats on the lake, some big and some small.  All kinds, even catamarans.

My sister-in-law is a great cook and we had a wonderful time at the picnic she planned and prepared for. I was lucky to marry a gal with a great family.

OK, enough for today. More to come.

You all have a great day now, you hear?

Reviewing my wandering, part 1

At the risk of redundancy, I am going to go over the highlights of my RV trip. We got all packed up and hit the road mid to late morning on Sunday, July 9, 2011 and returned Saturday, July 30, 2011. That was a full three weeks on the road and we went through thirteen states.



The first night we stayed at a KOA in Texarkana, TX and had to put up with almost unbearable heat. The following is a typical view through Texas and parts of Arkansas:

We decided before we left that we were only going to go 250 to 300 miles a day and travel at 57 mph. We may have gone over the 300 mile limit the second day, but got through Arkansas and into Missouri where we stayed at another KOA in the south-eastern part of that state.



The next night we stopped again at another KOA on I-70 in Illinois just west of the Indiana state line. It turned out to be a nice place. But, the next day's travel through Iniana and part of Ohio was really bad.  The interstate was so rough we thought that it would shake the old motor-home apart.  We definitely decided not to return home that route.

The following night was spent in a wonderful RV park in Ohio wish was part of a huge sports complex. Remember this blog where I showed the old Airstream Motor-home: http://dizzydick.blogspot.com/2011/07/wandering-along-third-day.html


Here is a picture of some of the buildings:

There where even trap and skeet shooting areas, all different kinds of sports fields, and multiple buildings and roads. I don’t know what all type of events were held there, but there must have been a lot of them.



Just to let you see how private it was, here is a view of my RV in the near center with the Airstream on the left and a trailer way in the back right. Nice place:

And of course a sunset that evening:

The next day we headed for Greenville, Pennsylvania.  Of course a picture of a Pennsylvania farm is in order:

This brings us up to our stay at the Farma Family Campground, which I covered in some detail on my blog while I was there. We would love to go back there sometime. My wife and I both really enjoyed the area and the access to natural wooded areas to take walks and explore. We had a good time there and got to visit with my Aunt and with new friends that we first met at a flea market in Texas. Yes, I did promise to tell you more about these people.


My wife and I met this wonderful lady at the Old Security Flea Market on hwy 105 here in Texas. She seemed very nice and we talked with here a couple of weekends in a row. One day she said that she had been in Texas babysitting her son’s kids. From what I understood, she had been here for quite some time. She mentioned that she was selling at the flea market to get enough money to fly her and her grandkids back home. Of course I asked her where home was and she said Pennsylvania. We asked her where in Pennsylvania and she said the Greenville area. “Wow!!” I said, that is where we are heading to see my Aunt. It is such a small world. She and her family have a 200 acre truck farm and sell at farmers markets in Greenville and other towns around the area.


We told her that we would stop in and see her when we got up there, and that is exactly what we did. They had a wonderful, unique place and we were so glad that we got to see it. Here is a picture of the couple:

They were wonderful people and it was so nice of them to invite us to their home, feed us, and give us some vegetables to take with us.



I believe that this is enough for now.  Don't forget you can click on the pictures to enlarge them. To be continued. . .


You all have a great day now, you hear?