More rain followed by showers then drizzle then pounding rain then mist

Evening, Campers! It's Silver Cliche' here with you again after a five day hiatus. I've enjoyed some time off and I hope you have too. Wait a minute. That doesn't sound right. I hoped you missed our reports from the road and are happy I'm back at the camera shutter and keyboard!

So, when I last wrote we were sitting near the shores of Lake Erie in Ohio and looking forward to visiting our oldest, dearest friends up the Lake in Buffalo. We awoke on Wednesday morning and it wasn't raining! It was just grey and cool. We headed east on I-90 for the easy 2 1/2 hour drive through the "Erie Triangle" of Pennsylvania and into the far southwestern corner of New York. If you are not familiar with the Erie Triangle, it's the piece of land that looks like a chimney rising from the north west corner of Pennsylvania. In the early days of our nation this 300 square miles which today includes Erie, Pennsylvania belonged to the Iroquois Confederacy. The nascent Federal Government considered all claimants from the states (including claims by New York, Connecticut, Massachusetts and Pennsylvania) and brokered a deal buying the land from the Iroquois and selling it to Pennsylvania. The Iroquois were paid $3,200 for the land. The government also paid the Seneca nation $800 (not the last time the Federal government would pay a bystander). Then Pennsylvania paid the Feds $152,000 for the same land. If only our current government knew how to make deals like that! Today that land is criss-crossed by pavement and large portions are covered in grape vineyards. It was a pleasant drive.

Anyway, I digress. Buffalo. We arrived in the very early afternoon, settled our rig in for a few days of urban camping and proceeded to get reacquainted with our old friends under a warm, blue sky with lunch outdoors. That was the last time we would see the sun in Buffalo for three days until we were hitching up to leave. In between those exposures to old Sol, we ate, shopped, ate more, went sightseeing, visited, ate again, watched "Naked and Afraid", ate again, shopped some more, watched "Iron Chef" and "The Great British Baking Show", drove past our old houses, ate some more and finally stayed in and ate. We finished with pancakes on the morning of our departure. I don't believe I have ever written about the importance of pancakes on a journey like this. One day I should go deep on that subject. 

Through all of that, the thing we most focused on was architecture. Buffalo grew up in the early decades of the last century. Its position at the end of the (then) navigable Great Lakes made it a transportation hub. Where transportation flourished, industry followed. Where industry took root, wealth followed. Buffalo was a very wealthy city and the remains of that era have been lovingly cared for in vast areas ever since. I think the core residential areas of the city look better now than they did when we moved away from Buffalo in 1984. I hope to look as good as the City does when I'm 110. At the same time Buffalo was reaching its high point of success, Frank Lloyd Wright was reaching his. It's not surprising that the two would come together. When we were last in Buffalo I wrote about the Darwin Martin house which is a Wright masterpiece and is finishing up a restoration costing tens of millions of dollars. On this trip we focused on other Wright works in the area including the Elizabeth Martin (Darwin's wife) summer house in Derby, New York about 30 minutes outside the city. This house is known as Graycliff. We first learned of Graycliff in about 1999 when it came up for sale. We went to see it knowing it was under a conditional contract with a group to be known as "The Conservancy". We told ourselves we were looking with the notion of trying to buy it since it was priced at only $500,000 and we thought that was a steal. In reality, it's not clear how we could have put a deal together, but it was fun to think about it. So, the Conservancy did complete the purchase and has spent almost 20 years and many millions bringing it back. The house sits on 8 acres of lakefront  bluff. Here are a couple of shots on a grey day:

First, the view approaching the entrance of the home. Lake Erie is in the background and about 80' below the ground level at the top of the cliff where the house stands:

 
 And two interior shots from a room on the back of the house that we might call the living room if it was in our house. As one approaches the space, it is quite dark with a stone floor, stone wall columns and limited wood work, but an enticing corner window with ferns for a window sill:

 When the magnitism of the window has completed its attraction, the view through the window includes the grounds and the Lake:

 That corner window became a Wright trademark and was widely used in homes that followed including Fallingwater outside of Pittsburgh.

Buffalo also includes Wright designs that were not built in his lifetime. One is a gas station in the Transportation Museum. The other is this open air mausoleum:

 Each of the "steps" is actually two final resting places. It was simple and peaceful. The setting beside a quiet pond was even more tranquil and prompted reflection.

To balance the splendor of so much Wright, our host (you remember "Buff" and "Mrs. Buff" from our last visit to the Nickle City... right?) took a detour after dinner one evening in East Aurora. We stopped in front of a national landmark... the home of Millard Fillmore, 13th President of the United States. In an effort to be kinder than history has been to "Old Mill", let me say that his home was as modest as his accomplishments in office. Later this trip we will probably tour Monticello, home of the third President, Thomas Jefferson. I see a theory emerging that the homes of Presidents may be an indicator of their success in office. More impressive home = more impressive accomplishments as President. To confirm or refute that theory, all I need is 3 1/2 more years. Check in with me then.

After a couple of days in Buffalo, we moved on to the Pocono Mountains in northeast Pennsylvania east of Scranton. The day was warm and partly sunny as we rolled across western New York, crossed the Southern Tier through Corning, Elmira and Binghamton and down the Susquehanna Valley to Scranton then east. We arrived at my folks house and had a wonderful visit, fantastic dinner prepared by my brother-in-law. We woke up to rain. So... we ate some more. With more than a little encouragement and supervision we managed to snake the truck and trailer down the steep, narrow driveway this morning and continue heading south.

A day that started in the low fifties and rainy peaked about the time we arrived in Frederick, Maryland in the low 80's and sunny. Such a nice day can only mean one thing for us... rain is on the way. However, we have our oldest daughter and three grand kids just up the road from where we are camping, so whatever the weather we'll be busy all week while we are here in Maryland.

So, that's what's been happening. Stay tuned...

 Later,

SC'