Day 19 - Glorious corn fields and the odd Kentuck Knob

Pennsylvania:

Feeling better today. I hardly ate anything the past couple of days so as not to aggravate the squigglies in my stomach. My sour outlook was sugared by this kind motel lady I called to reserve a room. She said she loved me and her name was Lilyanne. Couldn't wait to meet her. I sped through Lancaster County and enjoyed watching real Amish folk doing their business at highway pace. No more photographs this time. My improved health made me curious again...the point of this trip. I noticed the lush corn, the wide blue sky, the blue flowers on the roadside, and I realized...there are hardly any trees in the county. Open space and fields of crops. It was great to be alive.

I made it to Markleysburg, a puny highway town. I had to stay in the vicinity because I have reservations for tomorrow to see Frank Lloyd Wright's Fallingwater. I passed Lilyanne's "Inn" and kept on driving. Traveler's Inn consisted of two white trailers and a small house next to them. I just couldn't do it so I fled like a cowardly chicken. I found another inn but I think they're mostly cabins owned by Menonites. The best room I've had so far on this trip.

I headed on over to the "other" FLW house in the area, Kentuck Knob. Very nice little house, famous for its hexagonal skylights and triangular patterns. To be honest, my regard for the architect dropped a notch. Granted he was 86 when he worked on this house, but some of his ideas didn't make sense. You have to sidle sideways into the narrow hallways as he believed hallways are places you walk through and are unimportant. The closets were almost to the door because he didn't believe in attics and basements for they create cesspool for junk. I can understand...I hate junk...but I think he could've done a better job designing the interiors. I mean, there's no way an obese guest could through the hall. Just because genius architect was puny...

Anyway, Fallingwater, his masterpiece, is in the pipeline for tomorrow. Maybe the greatest architect of his time...as he dubbed himself...will reclaim Notch 1.

Day 18 - Ominous trees and Lego Mark Twain

MA, CT, NY, PA:

Oddly enough for such a fantastic trip, I'm kinda down. Perhaps it's because the sashimi I ate last night poisoned my system. Lovely meal until two o’clock in the dead of night found my insides spinning on hyperdrive. I slept not at all.

Mark Twain’s home perked me up a bit in Farmington, Connecticut. Since we couldn’t take pictures I took pains to memorize the layout, contents, and details of his quirky house. The guide said that Twain had a habit of writing down notes on the margin of the books he’d read. A Jane Austen margin said, “If she weren’t already dead underground, I’d beat her with her shin bone.”

I like Twain. He’s funny, simple, yet complex and subversive. When I studied at Oxford a professor asked who the best author that ever lived was. Everybody said Milton, Shakespeare, or another usual heavy hitter. I said, “Mark Twain,” for which I heard sniffs, guffaws, laughter, and eventually, "Plebe.” Whatever...I liked and still like old Sam. I stopped by the Noah Webster House and a couple of other places I can’t remember right now, but I hurried off to Bridgeport to check the Barnum & Bailey Museum. While there I began calling for motel prices because I was losing steam. I was eating cheese puffs in lieu of non-existent crackers. Connecticut is a pretty wealthy town, and I couldn’t afford to stay.

I drove onward through New York and finally to Pennsylvania's Amish country. By then I was really ill, and the address I'd set on my GPS turned out to be the wrong one. I was sent to a famous Amish barn in the middle of nowhere. I called a motel called Lucky 7. A South Asian guy answered and said a room was $50. Even in my state I balked and replied, “$50? We’re in the middle of nowhere!” So I hung up.

No motels in sight until I spotted Relax Inn. The front desk clerk quoted $50 rates. I said, “Are you kidding me? That’s a bit too much for this place don’t you think?” He smiled. “You called before?” he asked. Then it hit me. I was arguing with the same guy twice. “Hey, this is Lucky 7 isn’t it?” "Not anymore. That would be $50 plus tax.”

I don’t feel well and I don’t know why I came to Amish country. Most of the gag shows are probably Menonites in Amish duds. Reminds me of when Chief Joseph had to don his ceremonial outfit just to be chased around by Wild Bill Hickok in front of a paying crowd. But I perked up when I took a drive and suddenly saw a horse and buggy racing a Geo Metro.

And yes, I will admit to my shame…When I was in the middle of nowhere looking for that barn, there emerged an Amish man riding a team of horses with his family. They looked so authentic and magnificent that I reached for my camera and clicked a shot. I immediately felt like puking. Poor people. I really don’t know what I’ll do tomorrow. See the sideshow and be a heel or drive somewhere else altogether.