2014-15. Pennsylvania: Falling Water & Marilyn's Old Stomping Grounds in the Pittsburgh Area.

    After a day-long, 400-plus-mile drive from Rome, New York, we pulled into Ohiopyle State Park Kentuck Campground in Ohiopyle, Pennsylvania.

Enjoying a green Pennsylvania forest through the MRV's back doors. 

Nature's colors. I love blue & green together & they remind me of a favorite jacket I sewed as a teen.

So green!

In the morning, we'd tour nearby Fallingwater.

Each time I've visited Fallingwater I've thought I'd like to live there.

The Kaufmann family owned one of the three major department stores in Pittsburgh.

Fallingwater in winter (fallingwater.org).

Fallingwater is cantilevered over Bear Run Creek. 

Pictures were allowed only of the exterior.

Sitting areas (Insidewright).

Steps go right down to Bear Run Creek.

Much of the geometric furniture is built in (Insidewright).

Study nook. Each room has doors to the outside (Daniel Wilson, Alamy, Travel and Leisure).

Fallingwater is organic to its setting in the forest on the creek.

Bedrooms are functional (Insidewright). On the wall is "Portrait of a Man,"by Diego Rivera. 

Dining area* (Fanning Sparks, Step Inside with Frank Lloyd Wright).

Youghiogheny River at Ohiopyle. Bear Run Creek is a tributary of the Youghiogheny.

    From Fallingwater we drove the 70 miles to Pittsburgh. My recollections of Pittsburgh are two. First, each winter holiday when we were young, my Aunt Betty took my sister and me to see the Christmas window displays at Hornes, Kaufmanns, and Gimbles, the city's three big department stores; to shop in the Secret Children's Shops; and to eat lunch at a restaurant.

    Doug & I did a Duck Tour of Pittsburgh, which works especially well in Pittsburgh, given that it lies between two rivers, the Allegheny and the Monongahela, that come together at the "Point" to form the Ohio River.

We drove through town first. The former Allegheny County Jail.

Gateway Center.

Driving down Stanwix Street.

PPG (Pittsburgh Plate Glass) Place & Towers, largely made of glass & with 231 spires, opened in 1984. When I saw it I thought Harry Potter must have been filmed there...but it wasn't.

A water feature was added to the plaza in 2003. In summer, 140 lit water columns cool the plaza. The water seeps into the surface & is recycled.

In winter, the plaza becomes an ice rink (CP photo: Amanda Waltz).

Pittsburgh's old & new buildings.

 Our Duck entered the water at the Monongahela River Wharf parking lot, which used to & probably still does flood when the river rises.

Heading down the Monongahela River toward Fort Pitt Bridge. 

    My second memory of Pittsburgh: How many thousands of times did my parents and I make the 40-mile-roundtrip drive on the Parkway from our home in Moon Township, near the Greater Pittsburgh Airport, going through Fort Pitt Tunnel & crossing Fort Pitt Bridge to the Oakland area of Pittsburgh, for my swim practices—before & after school.

As our Duck approached the Point, we passed the Fort Pitt Blockhouse.

    In the mid-17th century, the "Point," where the Allegheny and Monongahela Rivers merge to form the Ohio, changed hands several times between the French and British. The French called it Fort Duquesne. With the British at the gate in 1758, they burned the fort to the ground. The British rebuilt, naming the fort Pitt after the British secretary of state. When the British left, the Americans moved in, using the fort as the western HQ of the Continental Army. The Blockhouse is all that remains of the fort.

At the point. Point State Park has been popular for recreating since 1974. Heinz Field can be seen on the other side of the Allegheny River.

Duquesne Incline, one of Pittsburgh's two funiculars, to Mt Washington.

    George Washington stood on one of Pittsburgh's many hills mapping the area for the British. The area named for him is popular for city views, shopping, and dining.

Rounding the Point in our Duck.

There is literally a line in the water where the two rivers join to form the Ohio: the Allegheny from the northeast is brown, while the Monongahela from the southeast is greenish.

Heinz Field across the Allegheny.

Our Duck turns around a bit past the Point, taking us down the other bank of the Monongahela. The Monongahela Incline rises to Mt Washington behind a shopping mall.

Monongahela Incline.

Like most cities, Pittsburgh is a mixture of old & new.

PPG Towers behind older structures.

Returning to the Monongahela Wharf.

    We ended our Duck tour back at the Monongahela Wharf. Then we headed down the Ohio River in the MRV to other spots I remember well. First was Neville Island, about 20 minutes downstream from Pittsburgh. My dad spent much of his career there with Pittsburgh-Des Moines Steel Company (PDM). He also worked at their Santa Clara, CA, plant, and in Australia, England, and Saudi Arabia.

This looks to me like the office building where my dad worked with PDM, though the company had closed in 2002.

    PDM built many bridges, stadiums, and water tanks, but also fabricated and built large-scale, well-known projects, among them wind tunnels for NASA, the forked steel columns that enabled the World Trade Center Towers to reach their heights and withstand high winds—but not jets, and the St Louis Arch. It was PDM that introduced our family to California. When we lived in San Jose, my dad sold water tanks to municipalities in the Central Valley, where I have now lived most of my life.

    From Neville Island, we crossed the bridge over the Ohio to Coraopolis, where my parents had grown up down the street from each other. Further downstream we crossed the Ohio again, this time to Sewickley, where my siblings and I were born and where my sister and I went to high school.

Sewickley Academy, where my sister & I attended high school.

Senior School "quad," where we hung out during lunch.

The MRV parked on Vance Ave in Coraopolis, which still has many brick streets.

The house my mother grew up in & where we lived the first year we moved back to Pennsylvania from California while our house was being built.

The Presbyterian churches in Coraopolis catty-corner from each other that my grandparents attended—never the twain would meet. We scandalized some when we returned to Pennsylvania by attending the new Presbyterian church built closer to our new home in Moon Township.

My dad's parents & my cousins lived on the same street, Oakhaven Drive, we'd lived on before we moved to California. I spent a lot of time at both of those houses when we returned to Pennsylvania.

House in Moon Township, "up the hill" about 2 miles from Coraopolis, we lived in when I was born. My sister, me, & my mom on the front porch.

Sort of the house my parents had built on Valentine Road when we moved back to Pennsylvania. We had no arch over the front door. My bedroom was on the left & I used to climb out on the roof. So many memories.

My environs ages 0-2 & 8-18.

* * *

* As soon as we entered the dining room at Fallingwater I noticed that the table was set with Spode "Florence" china, the same as my parents'. I'd always loved the pattern and colors, and my mom passed the Spode on to me. After my parents were both gone, I inquired and Fallingwater said yes, they'd love to have my parents' Spode.

Spode "Florence" china.

    I felt I honored my parents by donating their dishes to Fallingwater, a special place not far from our Pennsylvania homes that we all admired.