We have just returned from a short trip to Pennsylvania to visit Falling Water as a part of Cindy’s birthday celebrations. We normally do something a bit more exciting and a bit farther away, but this has been a very trying three weeks and we just didn’t have time. On May 14th, we had a severe storm with driving rains and heavy winds - and for fifteen terror-filled minutes the craziest hailstorm I’ve ever encountered. We honestly thought that all the windows would be smashed by the hail and ferocious winds; the noise was absolutely incredible. I quickly closed the blinds and curtains upstairs so if the windows broke at least the glass shards would be contained while Cindy went to the center stairway. Hmmm, maybe that was as better choice of places to wait out a storm of this magnitude? By the time the storm stopped, we had lost electricity and daylight so I wasn’t able to do a complete walk around, but we were thankful that no windows broke and the juice came back on only three hours later so we had AC and fans and could go to bed comfortably. The time without power gave us an excellent opportunity to find all of our flashlights and batteries and candles and re-load batteries as needed. We’ll be ready for the next storm!
The next day I surveyed our house and found damage but nothing I thought was too severe. We had sold our other house up the road and we were due to close on it on the 24th so I went out there and found little damage and no flooding inside, for which I was thankful. That afternoon we headed to the airport for a trip to Florida to visit the kids, eyeball Megan to make sure she was doing well (she is), and to visit friends we had met on a cruise. I started to get emails from the realtors handling the closing stating that I had to file an insurance claim on the house due to the $17,000 of damage from the storm. I was confused to say the least since it didn’t look bad to me, but they said the house would need a new roof, some siding, and other goodies. Doing things at a distance is never easy, and with a deadline approaching it was rather stressful.
I called our insurance agent and set the claim in motion. I was amazed at how quickly they can move and how little pushback I received. The agent did an evaluation, priced the work at $17K, and the contractor had the paperwork for me to sign on the 23rd so that the closing could continue as planned. It was only after looking at the estimate for repairs that I realized if this house had that much damage that I couldn’t see, what damage was there to our house? We had been told that the hail was much worse in our neighborhood, so I again called to file a claim and again everything went like clockwork. Our house has $28K worth of damage so we’ll be getting a new roof, gutters, downspouts, siding on the entire house (!), twenty screens replaced that were shredded by hail, as well as two new doors. Absolutely amazing.
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| That's me with the key. |
We had a free thirty hours so on Sunday we headed up to spend the night at a hotel near Fallingwater I had found online that was supposed to be historic and had a good restaurant. On paper the drive was only meant to take a bit under three hours, but we had some nasty weather, again, and there were times when the rain and then the fog where so intense that we had to slow down to 40 mph for safety sake. When we arrived the place looked rather normal, but we were soon to discover that it was a cross between M. C. Escher and the Bates Motel from Psycho. They gave us a key and told us to go up the stairs, out the door, around the building, down the stairs, then up some other stairs and use the key to get into the hall and then the room. When we did all of this, we were presented with the most depressing cheap dark motel room we have ever seen. There was enough mold to qualify as a super site, the bed was small and tossed into a corner, there was one little window, an old fashioned AC window unit and a bathroom that had a pitted mirror and more colorful mold around the toilet. The main feature of this horror was a large jacuzzi tub which took up half the room, right next to the bed! I reached for the phone to call down and get another room but there was no phone so I retraced my steps and spoke to a manager.
Somehow, he had thought that when I had asked for their best room, we would certainly want a jacuzzi. I indicated that even if I could get into one, I doubted that I could get out and asked whether he had any other rooms. We went up yet another staircase and there were four charming old fashioned rooms - without a jacuzzi (darn!) - but with a clean and working bathroom, four large windows, very high ceilings, a comfortable looking bed and some antique furniture. We moved in a flash and celebrated with some ice cold Champagne I had brought from home.
Cindy’s birthday dinner was INTERESTING. It turns out that this hotel also has a world famous butcher shop attached and they are world famous for their smoked meats, grilled steaks and other meatatarian dishes. We had noted the smoke smell upon entering the hotel, so while we had brought dress-up clothes, we opted to leave them in the car so as to avoid dry cleaning charges upon our return home. Given that the other diners were dressed quite casually, our decision was the right one. We did find a white wine from New Zealand which they brought in a proper ice bucket, points for them, and then we lingered over the menu trying to find things we could eat. As we sipped our wine we noticed a plate of something that Fred Flintstone might have ordered. Turns out it was their world famous stuffed pork chops that were each about six inches high including the stuffing. Slabs of ribs, buckets of wings, and enormous steaks were all being served to tables around us with side dishes large enough to feed several families. We ended up ordering a salad with salmon for Cindy and I had a grilled chicken sandwich with two pounds of french fries. It will be a birthday dinner that we’ll remember for ages, but for all the wrong reasons.
The next day we had a very American breakfast (2 eggs over easy, hash browns, etc.) at a restaurant a mile away since this hotel didn’t serve breakfast; we found it odd that a hotel with a full service restaurant can’t manage breakfast for overnight guests. Fully fueled, we drove through the beautiful Laurel Highlands and stopped at 2 lovely waterfalls before finding Fallingwater. We’d reserved tour tickets, as required, but were were quite early and happy to find out that they could accommodate us on an earlier tour. They have quite an operation with groups of about a dozen leaving the main meeting area every 5 minutes, with the guides stopping to talk in designated areas of the house and then scurrying ahead with us to the next spot before the next group catches up. The architecture is indeed interesting and it’s amazing the way the house juts over the waterfall, although we had both had the idea that the water went through one level of the house, not just under it. The pictures on the website are quite accurate and give you a great idea of the design of not only the house but the furniture and beautiful built-in cabinets. We left without making an offer to buy since we found out it costs six million per year for upkeep!
Best wishes, Cindy and William
