Niagara Falls, Frank Lloyd Wright, and home

We are back in Raleigh now and the last couple of days on the road were much like the rest of the trip, we were doing things. After leaving Huron we headed south to the Canadian Niagara Falls.  They are as advertised. Stunning is one word that is appropriate. The number of languages we heard spoken was amazing. People from all over the world were there.  

We were fortunate with our accommodations and with the moon phase too. This is the view from our room the first evening we were there - and that is a full moon.

And in the early, well sorta early morning, the mist and fog from the falls makes a huge shadow.

The boat ride from the Canadian side is not on the "Maid of the Mist" but on the "Hornblower".  The boat gets quite close and despite the rain gear, you're gonna get wet.

The American Falls with Bridal Veil Falls to the right. 

Just prior to getting off of the "Hornblower" 

We also went down "below the falls", loud, is another word, to describe the falls as well as powerful, very very powerful.

The powerful word also describes the the rapids below the falls. They are classified as Class VI Rapids which means they are impossible to survive.

In past years a few thrill seekers, barrel riders have made successful rides through the rapids, several have not. The same is true for going over the falls. Both activities are now prohibited. Shucks!

Rainbows are fairly regular occurrences.

Bridal Veil Falls on the American side has a jagged edge. In a couple of thousand years the American Falls will have eroded back and merged into the Canadian Falls. America, we have a problem— Obama's fault.

In Buffalo, New York is one of the first houses the Frank Lloyd Wright designed in the prairie design.  It was for Darwin Martin of the Larkin Soap Company in 1905 when Buffalo was a big time manufacturing center and Wright was getting started. The prairie design has many features that I think you can see in the house we grew up in in Graham.

The wide eaves, small, inconsequential front porch, lots of windows in the living room to open to a family space in the back of the house, high windows and open connections between rooms. Note the slight opening for the front door entrance in the picture below to the left of the planter in the long brick wall from the left.

These are the across the street neighbors. In Raleigh, they would have had a hissy fit if Wright had tried to build in their neighborhood.

And in south western Pennsylvania just east and south of Pittsburgh is Falling Waters, one of Frank Lloyd Wright's later houses. It was built in 1938.

This was built for Edgar Kaufmann of Kaufmann's Department Store of Pittsburgh. As the name implies, it is over falling water and is some kind of impressive.

And the country side in southern Pennsylvania is pretty. We avoided the interstate a good bit on our drive south from Lake Erie in both Pennsylvania and West Virginia. Both place have lots of pretty countryside, poor looking small towns and a few houses with Trump yard signs.

As stated above, we are home, Kate kept the party evidence fairly well concealed, and other than being dry, all here looks good. We will be here for most of the fall, planning a trip to Panama in October I think, and then it is time to start thinking of 2017. Got places to go.