Waterfalls, Falling Water and 93 Falling 
Trip Report #3                         

                               Sept 14-16, 2018

How do we decide where to go and what to visit? We have a wonderful book gifted to us from our daughter Katie … 1000 Places to See Before You Die.

Hocking Hills

One of the places listed is Hocking Hills State Park in Ohio. Spectacular rock formations cloaked in dense forest with cliffs, gorges, caves and waterfalls with towering eastern hemlocks, the Canada yew and the yellow and black birch. Millions of years of uplift and stream erosion created this awesome beauty. We stay at the state campground and spend two days hiking into these remarkable gorges and recess caves carved out of sandstone over millions of years. We visit Old Man’s Cave, Lower Falls, Ash Cave and Cedar Falls; yet only see a small part of the region. Of course, such beauty requires multiple pictures.

To get a perspective, see Dan at lower right corner of this picture below.

Pennsylvania

Leaving Ohio, we enter Pennsylvania; hop scotching back and forth hitting more bucket list sites. There are numerous covered bridges in PA; we stopped at this one built in 1802 and rebuilt 1906 and 2008. No cars allowed.

 

Frank Lloyd Wright

Architecture done well always has a striking and fascinating appeal. There is none as appealing as FallingWater, a weekend home designed by Wright for the Kaufmanns of Pittsburg. Wright designed this house to sit over the waterfall. There were also many trails around the house to get different views. A definite bucket list checkoff and worth the time to visit.

Dan in picture with house above the waterfall. Note the steps from inside the house down to the river.

Vicki in picture with house past the waterfall … seen in lower right side under the house.

Flight 93 National Memorial

The goal was to fly straight into the Capital Buildings in Washington D.C. The passengers had a different plan. Fully aware of the destruction of the Twin Towers in New York that happened only minutes earlier and faced with the hijacking of their plane, the passengers voted and decided to retake their plane from the terrorists. In storming the cockpit, the passengers disrupted the plan and forced the terrorists instead to crash the plane before reaching their target.

This site is now a memorial to the 40 passengers and crew who saved countless more people in D.C. and thwarted the plan to destroy the buildings and people who serve our country in D.C. Both houses of Congress were in session. The destruction of that center of democracy would have been additionally devastating.

The memorial covers many acres and gives us options to get in some walking. The building housing the museum is a long one pointing out the flight path of flight 93. The black portion is a promontory pointing to the crash site. The site is marked in the distance by a large boulder.

 

 This picture is taken from the path walking up to the museum. If you visit, plan to walk.

The boulder marks the final resting spot and the white wall lists the names of all 40 passengers and crew.

 

Gorgeous wildflowers everywhere in the fields … even in the middle of September.

Next … Lancaster and Philadelphia.