O Canada

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Time to leave museum-heavy Washington behind and relax a little on two day journey up to Paul's brother, Phill and family.



So, Wednesday we set off from Washington. During the day we crossed over two drainage divides - the Eastern Continental Divide, between the Atlantic and the Gulf of Mexico directions - and the Great Lakes / Mississippi divide. We also took the car over 8000 miles on the trip meter, not too bad considering we did nearly 5000 in the first 4 weeks.



First, though, we headed into rural Pennsylvania to Kentuck Knob. KK is a national historic landmark, a house designed by Frank Lloyd Wright in 1953, one of his last. FLW is probably most famous for his Guggenheim Art Gallery in New York - the white spiral one, like a snail stretched tall - but is also famed through the US for his built-into-the-landscape homes. We wanted to go to his most famous place, Fallingwater, but that is closed on a Wednesday ? but KK is just a couple of miles away.



KK was built for an ice cream magnate, I.N.Hagan and his wife (note, not Haagen Dazs). Classed as a 'small' one storey Usonian house, it is built into the hillside - FLW felt that was a more sympathetic to the surroundings, rather than on top of the hill - surrounded by woodland. Open floor plan, cantilever overhangs, wood and local stone, built in furniture but...it felt quite dark and somewhat claustrophobic. Beautiful, but wouldn't have been our choice.



The Hagans sold it to Lord Peter Polumbo for $600,000 in 1986 (that year we bought our Norfolk home, Wadham Lodge, for £55,000). They still own it as a holiday home, and have an extensive 'statue' collection in the grounds.



Our intention had been to press closer on towards Cleveland after KK, but over a coffee we found a leaflet for the Flight 93 National Memorial. Although it would add another 3 hours or more to the day, and miles back roughly from whence we had come, we felt we had to do it.



What a beautiful, tasteful and moving memorial to a tragic event. Flight 93 was the 9/11 flight that didn't get to its target. Instead the passengers fought back against the hijackers which resulted in the plane crashing here. It is thought, but not known with any actual evidence, that its target was the US Capitol building, or the White House.



The ground plan of the circular site - a mile or more in diameter - is a 2/3 of a circle of curving road, with an inside circumference walk. At the high point, looking down towards the actual crash site, is a visitor and memorial centre detailing the events of that day, and including some recordings of final telephone calls from the plane, debris, passenger photos and memorial items left at the site. Outside the visitor centre is a few hundred yards of black paving which marks the ground route of the plane's last few seconds of flight before it crashed at the edge of a wooded area below and ahead. The plane landed upside down.



After a thorough forensic investigation and recovery the crater was filled in and a single large granite rock acts as a headstone for what is in effect a mass grave for the 40 passengers and crew that died that day. The edge of the debris field is itself marked by a walkway with a raised edge which stops access onto the debris field.



One of the most moving and thoughtful pieces of memorial design you will ever see.



On our way there we passed a roadside sign advertising home bottled maple syrup, and we just had to stop for a bottle, which was sold to us by a Menonnite carpenter from a selection on his boss's kitchen table.



Early the next day we pressed on to Cleveland for a day at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. We had been before, 20 years or so ago, but a lot more people have been inducted since then. So much to see, and hear! Paul took over 250 photos and we will probably do a RARHOF photo album all to itself when we get back.



Too many highlights to list, but just a few - Ringo Starr's original drum kit, of which Pip has a jigsaw puzzle! ; various original psychedelic concert posters from San Francisco Summer of Love 1967 ; an original poster for what is claimed to be the first Rock and Roll Concert or 'Festival' in 1955 promoted by a very famous DJ Alan Freed (who a few years later was embroiled in an illegal 'paid to play' playola scandal which made him a broken man) ; plus clothing, instruments, original lyrics etc etc. The current top floors exhibition was devoted to 50 Years of Rolling Stone Magazine. No Led Zep items though, and they hadn't got John Peel listed amongst 20 or so UK Influential DJs.



After 7 hours there we went on to Phill and Cindy's for a delightful 4 night stay. That evening we found ourselves at a local sports bar cheering on the Cleveland Indians baseball team who were having their first post-season match - best of 5 - aiming to get to the 'World Series' (that is the baseball final that is between 2 American teams ?).



Friday was a trip with Phill and Cindy to the Cleveland Museum of Art, which had undergone a major refurbishment and rebuild in recent years. The original building has been renovated, a 3 wing addition built and the area between glazed over. The initial trip was for their Jazz Era exhibition featuring sculpture, fashion, furniture, ironwork, jewellery, art, glass etc from the 1930s Art Deco period. Wonderful. We then took a focused walk into just a few of the galleries. There is some serious art on display here - Picasso, Degas, Van Gogh, Bacon, Freud, Pollock, Warhol.



We were then able to swing by Colin's school - our nephew - to cheer him on in an inter-school cross country race, and back via a local primary school where a bald eagle took to nesting residence in a tall tree in their playground a couple of years ago.



Saturday, with Phill and Colin away early on Scouting business, Cindy took us to Holden Arboretum, to the east of Cleveland, where we found they were in day 1 of their annual Goblins in the Garden celebration. Kids in costume, trick or treat, scarecrows, a corn pit (not sand), ... We couldn't access the trick or treat sweets without a kid in tow though!



Some wildlife, especially the local black squirrels. But also a groundhog who seemed hardly disturbed as we approached.



On Sunday, after pancakes and the previously mentioned maple syrup for breakfast - mmmm mmmm - we took a short walk to a local barber's for Paul to have a beard and hair trim (yes, open on a Sunday, and busy too). Phill had a cycle race that morning so when he was back we went to a local animal sanctuary and planaterium where we had a show just for the 4 of us. Then we all went on to Kent State University to meet up with Grace - niece - for dinner. A brief drive tour of campus included the memorial sites for the 4 students who were shot dead by the National Guard in 1970 (reference Neil Young's Ohio).



We allowed ourselves two days to get up to Ottawa, leaving Phill and Cindy's after breakfast on Monday. On the way to crossing the border into Canada at 1000 Islands we filled with fuel at a Seneca Nation station, at around 80% of prices elsewhere. The Seneca Nation tribe number around 8000 in Western New York State, and make shed loads of money from a casino in Buffalo, other gaming outlets, and gas stations. They have their own government and refuse to pay NY taxes as their businesses are operated on sovereign land.



Just west of Buffalo we visited another FLW house, Graycliff, this one a more grand and extensive 2 storey building on the lake's edge. Built 1926 - 31 this is regarded as one of his most important mid-career projects. Unfortunately from 1943 to 1997 it was owned by Roman Catholic priests who, shall we say, were not aware of the building's importance and for whom maintaining it in a pristine and original state was not high on their list of priorities. A conservation group bought it in 1997. $10m has been spent on it since then and it hardly shows! There is so much still to do inside, it is still effectively an internal building site.



As we got closer to the Canadian border we were aware that roadside marker poles were becoming taller, we thinks so that they will still show above the snow!



On Tuesday, having crossed into Canada, we stopped at Brockville. Not expecting or planning much we were delighted to find

- an English cafe, run by a lady from Bideford, Devon of all places. She emigrated with her husband 25 years ago. The tea room only opened this year. She makes delicious and light, hot from the oven scones, her own clotted cream and jam, crispy Eccles cakes, sandwiches with Branston pickle, 'Cornish' pasties,.... So scone, cream and jam, and an Eccles cake it was for us

- Canada's first railway tunnel. Running just 550 metres from one side of the town centre's high point through to river front, it has recently been refurbished and opened as a tourist attraction. And rather than just a tunnel they have installed a computer controlled sound and light display along its entire length. At regular intervals they even send a band of red light, representing a ghost train, down the tunnel accompanied by a whooshing train and whistle sound.



Later that afternoon we reached Ottawa and a bungalow rented for the night near to the Canadian Tire Centre, a 20000 capacity venue for that night's Roger Waters' gig. No words to describe, just ABSOLUTELY FANTASTIC. You should all go out and get tickets for one of his UK gigs next year. NOW!



A steady drive northwards along a short stretch of the Trans Canadian Highway further into Ontario up to Deep River took us to Pip's elderly aunt - Auntie Gwenda, Pip's mum's sister - whom she hadn't seen for over 20 years.

We detoured briefly to a town called Pembroke. Somewhat run down but they had a large wall-art collection.

After a motel stay in Deep River we woke up to -2°C, frost on the car windscreen and on the grass out back. Welcome to Canada!



A lovely day with Auntie Gwenda, reminiscing, catching up, lunch at Tim Horton's whose menu Gwenda clearly knows the details of ?



Today we have come back over the border into the USA to start slowly working our way across the New England states over the next two weeks in search of the best fall / autumn tree colours.

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