On October 7th we got in the car and drove out of St. Louis, east, to Highway 50, on the first long road trip we’d taken in years. My partner retired in June and one of the things she had been wanting to do was hit the road without an end date, just go. Briefly, almost all her dayjobs for many years had been such that we could not plan much more than 8 consecutive days of vacation. The frustrations mounted. There were things we wanted to see, to do, which, try as we might, necessitated more than 10 days.
We had this trip planned a couple of times, but it waited till October due to a variety of factors that required us to be close to home. But now we were off.
We were starting off by retracing a trip of many years ago. Highway 50 runs through a variety of smaller towns and the first time we drove it had been in some ways like touring Americana. Lost ages, in their way. Lost now for other reasons. Very little that we saw on that first trip remains. As is the case everywhere, things have grown, crowded now, new construction, the creeping sprawl of communities reaching toward each other. It was still a pleasant drive, but it was completely different.
Still, we achieved two things we wanted to repeat. We’d stumbled on a lovely hotel that first time and we wanted to visit it again. It’s still there, the Mariemount in Cincinnati, Ohio. The area in which it stands has itself changed, but that’s all right.
The other was a drive along the Ohio River going north to Pittsburgh. That, too, had been a pleasant discovery the first time. It was a beautiful drive. It’s still lovely, but also different.
One of my frustrations is the lack of shoulder to pull off on. I passed up a number of what may have been good photographs along the way because there simply was nowhere to pull over. The vividness of the drive will have to do.
The first part of the trip, however, was indeed to Pittsburgh. Our good friends, Tim and Bernadette, hosted us. Because their house is in some need of attention, they booked us a room (along with themselves) in a Hotel Indigo, a boutique hotel, in a section of town convenient to a number of things, like the Frick Museum, which was hosting an exhibit of Nordic arts and crafts.
Tim and Bernadette are immersed in local history (as well as history in general) and over the decades we’ve known them, the pleasure of their company has drawn us back to Pittsburgh time and again. Seeing it through their eyes has been a rich experience
Like Randyland. This is a difficult thing to describe. The house has been painted, decorated, added to with a dizzying accumulation of discards that in any other context would be simple trash, destined for a landfill. Instead there is this eruption of color and cheer and aphoristic philosophy in the middle of a neighborhood that seems to have no other purpose than to be itself. I doubt we would have stumbled on it on our own.
The Pittsburgh trip concluded with the Passage Party, an annual even they’ve been hosting for years. Up till the Covid-19 lockdown. This was the first one since then, to see if it could be resurrected. A gathering of literary-minded people who have chosen favorite passages in books they’ve read to read aloud, breaking for a potluck dinner. Excellent conversation, fascinating readings, and over all too soon. I think it was a success. There will be another next year.
The next day, Monday, we checked out and headed south to Chalk Hill. We’d booked a stay at the Lodge at Chalk Hill, which is…unique in our experience. Small rooms overlooking a pond, across the highway from a good restaurant, almost on top of a mountain. I’ll confess, the beds were less than wonderful, but it was convenient to at least two things we wanted to do.
The first we had to book in advance. A tour of a Frank Lloyd Wright house, called Kentuck Knob. This was one of his Usonian houses. A bit of a misnomer, though. Wright’s Usonians were intended as “affordable” housing. Designed on a simple floor plan, concrete foundation and floors, one level, with a car port rather than a garage, around 1200 square feet, this was Wright’s answer to a need for housing for, well, lower income shall we say. The idea was to build on a single model and keep the cost low. They were supposed to sell for around $5000.00. In the 1940s and 50s this was still not that cheap, but it was reasonable.
This one, however, the guide called a Grand Usonian. Custom designed and built for the Hagens, who own an ice cream company. They had been friends of the Kaufmans, for whom Wright had designed his most famous house, Falling Water. The Hagens loved that, so hired Wright to put up a house on the top of the 80 acres of ridgeland they had bought. Like all Wright buildings, it seems to have grown out of the landscape.
The house was finished and the Hagens moved in around 1956 at a final cost of $96000.00. It’s more than twice the square footage of a standard Usonian and considerably more opulent.
Touring a Wright is like standing inside a sculpture. I’m sure many people loved living in them, but for us it would be…uncomfortable. Wonderful, inspirational, brimming with the kind of architectural ideas and design grace notes you would want to take and use in your own home, but too much like being inside something you would feel never fully belongs to you.
The house is currently owned by one Lord Palumbo, who still lives in it, so we could not photograph inside.
The next day we went to Fort Necessity, the site of George Washington’s ignominous defeat at the hands of the French at the beginning of the French and Indian War (or the Seven Years War, more globally speaking). The visitor center was closed, thanks to the shutdown. A cloudy, temperate day. We did more driving around.
Our last day, a Thursday, we had planned and acted upon Donna’s wish to check off one more state on her list: Maryland. It wasn’t far away and we pulled into Cumberland, parked, and walked around for an hour. I acquired a new mug. We were in a very obviously developed street mall and a stranger graciously told us that smoking on this block, if we were caught, was a hefty fine.
After a couple of false starts, we found ourselves on Highway 220, heading back into Pennsylvania. Lovely drive, took us to 70, and then we headed west. Three traffic jams and too many hours later we finally passed into West Virginia. The idea had been to get to Indiana before stopping for the night, but night was approaching and we were barely into Ohio. We stopped at Zanesville. Contrary to popular opinion, Zanesville is not named for Zane Grey, the novelist, but for Ebenezer Zane, a trailblazer of the early republic. The town was officially named in 1801.
Night falling, road weary and hungry, we checked into a hotel and went in search of food. We found a restaurant that, on a better day, we might have walked to. Market Street Prime. The notice on Google said it had only recently opened. Well, 15 days before in fact.
A steak house, top-notch. A superb repast for the end of the trip.
Friday morning we powered through the whole way back to St. Louis.
This has been one of our best trips. Can’t wait to do it again.
