Starting Out '07 II: VIRGINIA, NORTH CAROLINA

Starting Out Again II: Virginia, North Carolina

Sea Grove, North Carolina is a center of pottery-making; one specialty is Face Jugs. This is Dave's brother Jim & Ann's collection. (They're in Charlotte, NC).

After visiting Barb's cousin Stephanie and Mark Hudy and Uncle Adolf, in Harrisonburg VA, we stopped at Staunton (still in VA, in the Shenandoah Valley; please to pronounce it "Staantn"). Frontier Village represents the homeland of various US immigrants. This is a German farm, ca 1730, transported completely from the old country.
They had a bunch of chickens and a big kitchen-garden; the gentlemen below gave us some excess leeks, which we laater made into some excellent soup.

Next was the 1730 Northern Irish village, featuring sheep and weaving. In addition, they grew Oats, Rye and Barley; 15 A. of Oats were required to support a family. Later on, when potatoes were introduced, you could raise a family on 5 A. of potatoes.
The blacksmith (below) gave a sad story of government and taxes: everybody in Ireland was required to tithe - give 10% of their income - to the Established (Anglican) church, plus another 10% to his own Presbyterian church. Plus all the taxes to the govt. On Sunday everyone was expected to spend 10 hours at church. The Anglican churchwardens would patrol the town, and it they caught him working on Sunday, they'd drag him off to the Anglican church for the 10 hours; on top of that they'd fine him.

This was an American barn, ca 1850. The machine there is a . To the left is Barb with a cheesepress. You put the cheese, full of whey, in there and tighten the screw.

The English farmhouse. Half-timbered, filled in between the timbers with mud & rushes.







Next, we went down the Blue Ridge Parkway to Asheville, home of the Biltmore estate. The first two generations of Vanderbilts made ferocious amounts of money, in steamships and railroads; the grandson, George Washington Vanderbilt, decided to concentrate on spending it. The idea was to establish a great landed estate like the great landed estates of England, which would last through geneerations. this he has done. It is the biggest private dwelling in the US; it includes a working farm, dairy farm etc. It is magnificently kept up.

.Forestry: Biltmore is credited with initiating modern forestry. Their first employee was Gifford Pinchot, who founded the US Forest Service under Theodore Roosevelt.

Relaxing after a hard day of picture-taking and note-making.

After Biltmore: down the rest of the Blue Ridge Parkway to the Great Smoky Mountains.

The French Broad River is the actual name; 'Broad ' is not another name for 'River". At one time it was the Broad River.

Starting Out 2007: King Tut, Washington, Charlotte

Our 2006 trip west was great fun, but we never did make it to the West Coast. Cowboy and Indian country - Arizona, Newe Mexico, Wyoming etc - got really absorbing. So, we took off again at the beginning of March 2007. Preceded by a quick visit to Boston to see son Dan, now in the Air Force doing space-vehicle research at Hanscom AFB outside Boston. The following from the MIT Science Museum: The machine below right circulates an endless necklace of steel balls out of the spout, thru the constantly squirming pile, down a hole in the middle, and so back up to the spout. The one below does something, don't remember what; the face-like one just is.

Two buildings at MIT opposite the Science Museum. No, they're not falling down.

Then, on to Philadelphia to see Barb's mother (brother Bob, and June, were away). Took in the King Tut exhibit at the Frankln Institute. They painted the risers of the steps in front...

The good old days in Egypt would be OK if I could be Pharaoh and Barb Pharaohess (Pharina? Farina?). Of course, odds are I'd be one of those mostly -naked cats pushing blocks of stone up ramps around to build the pyramids.

Interesting pix; but notice Barb's blouse in the three shots. No idea what that's about...anybody know? I used a Fuji digital camera; the pictures in my laptop, before uploading, were the same as these.

The Philadelphia Art Museum - always a treat. Collection of Oriental stuff is awesome. The Japanese temple is all inside.

Below, the new Phila waterworks building. (Did the ancient Greeks have waterworks? Then why a Greek temple?)

We stopped outside DC to visit Scott and Judy Kordella and their retired racing Greyhound, Tar. Tar is a real honey - not hyper at all.

Then to Charlottesville, VA - hiking with Barb and Ed Eckelmeyer.

Phoenix: Desert Museum, Taliesin

Phoenix: The Desert Museum (One of several; having a lot of desert, everyone around here seems to have the same idea). On the right, prickly pear, by far the majority of all cacti. Absolutely everything that grows here has prickers, including Prickly Pears, but lots of animals eay them anyway. In a pinch, cowmen could burn them off with a blowtorch so the cows could get at them.

The fuzzy things are Cholla; the tall ones, Saguaro. The club shaped one is Old Man of the Mountains.
Prairie Dogs - there aren't many left, now. Cute, though.













Below: Taliesin West. Frank Lloyd Wright, having been hard nhit by the Depression, took all the money from one of the few big commissions he had designed that actually got built and came out West, to Phoenix. Falling in love with it, he persuaded his students - they were plentiful enough, in the Depression - to build this for him, iusing almost exclusively stuff that was lying around (nothing ever rusts or rots, here). Really neat, the pix don't do it justice.
After bhe died, his widow took over; it's still going as a very small & select architectural school- maybe a couple dozen students. They'rer housed here until their last year; then, they design and build a dwelling of their own, out on the desert.
Wright had a couple of mantras about the desert - the principal one (for everywhere actualloy) is that the buildings should blend with the landsc ape. No 'cities on a hill' - the buildings tend to nestle down in hollows. Another is that you have lots of through-the-building halls, open to the air on both sides and with one side higher than the other. That way, since hot air rises, they generate a bit of breeze. Amazingly effective, in the desert.




A couple of rocks with petrogloyphs on the, that he picked up somewhere. Back then, you were allowed to do that.