Rain, Rain go Away

The rain has sequestered us to the R.V. We are in the Ohiopyle State Park on the Youghiogheny River in Pennsylvania. I intended to kayak the river, but the two days of rain has it flooded, muddy and fast, so I am being a big chicken. Kim is in the back of the R.V. doing pilates or yoga or something to a dvd. She keeps looking up at me and inviting me to join, I think she is delusional about the size of the yoga room back there. "Look Schweetie, Exalted Warrior pose!" "This pose would be great on your back!" "It feels good!" Now she is more than likely going to put on the Goonies dvd. See, it isn't all roses here folks. When it is rainy and cold and you just want some down time to yourself you can't get away to the other side of the house instead you sit at the dinette and try to avoid invitations to pilates. My wife is a geek, uh-oh here she comes, she is bound to peer over my shoulder at any time now. Whew! She went back to the "Theater /Excercise Room". I will pay for these comments, just not right now.

Yesterday we went for a bike ride down a rails-to-trails path that runs down the Youghiogheny River gorge. Youghiogheny is actually pronounced "Yok-e-o-gain-e". It is an indian word for "river that flows in a contrary direction" Ohiopyle is also an indian word for the water falls here. Probably for "water that falls at a high velocity over many boulders". In case you didn't know, a rails-to-trails is where they took an old railroad bed and fill it in with gravel or asphalt to make a bike and walking path. Since there were a lot of railroads in the East there are a lot of these types of paths. It was sunny yesterday afternoon for a spell and the water was flowing everywhere, so it was a very nice time. Today we went and looked at the Falling Water house that was designed by Frank Lloyd Wright and built for a wealthy department store mogul. It was very fascinating. The home was budgeted at 20-30 thousand and ended up costing $140,000. I know some architects capable of overrunning budgets, but 5 times the original sum? I know an architect that thought a project wasn't legitimate unless it went over budget, now I know why he said this. It was given to the Western Pennsylvania Conservancy back in 1963 by the only son of the couple and they maintain it now and give tours. The Smithsonian said it was one of the top 28 things people should see before they die, so we decided to check it out. As with all the Frank Lloyd Wright and Fay Jones type architecture I have seen it was comprised of a lot of stone and wood and the ceilings were LOW. Low, low, low. The guide refrenced me many times. "How tall are you? Six foot six. Yeah, see the ceilings in here are six foot four inches and the doorways are six foot two inches. You see Frank Lloyd Wright thought that all men should be around 5' 8" since that is how tall he was and any ceiling above 7' tall was a waste of space." I don't like Frank. This house of stone and wood over the water fall is awesome, but Frank can keep his low ceilings and doorways.