Through Ohio and into West Virginia, and Pennsylvania

Staying as much as possible off the main Interstates we are managing to see a fair bit of the back roads of the US.

We arrived in Ashland, there's not really much of international excitement and importance.   Apparently every city and town in the US can (and does) claim some connection with the life of Abraham Lincoln.  Apparently he stopped at Ashland for a quick visit to the rest room and continued on his way to something or other.  Or we might have made that up to make Ashland seem exciting.

But we did find this in the bible at Ashland, so we completed it and posted it back to jxg...we were hoping to find $$$.

Went to a true University town, in Athens Oh.  There is certainly money in these towns.  The grounds of the university is dotted all through the town, making it one big campus and every second building has Greek writing on it, from what look like doss houses through to six star mansions.

Athens Oh. Street paved with bricks..horrible to drive on.

The fancy accommodation at ohio university at Athens 

Really facinating and different memorial to fallen soldiers in Zanesville Oh. With each helmet having a soldier's name 

McDonald's is good for two things....clean toilets and wifi.  We didn't have wifi in Amritsar, but it was clean.  Zanesville turnpike store, was grotty...a first experience.. So don't go there.  Andrew has sent them an email.

Crossed into West Virginia at a place where A.L apparently stopped a traveller and asked directions.  This is were they later built a bridge

The bridge built on the spot where Mr Lincoln asked directions. Wheeling WV.just to the right of Ohio.

There is an island in the middle of the Ohio river, which West Virginia claims...the question is why would you want to....

The flood markers on the island in the river...

There is a building sitting pretty high along the Main Street across the island which shows flood markers.  Seems that more often than not the island is under water, which may be why so many of the houses are in such a poor state of repair, many falling over, and the ones fixed up, clearly costing big money.

Bad fair and good

Representative of many of the houses on the island.

Pennsylvania 

After leaving Wheeling, we spent much of the day driving around a relatively small area, the Washington  county.  Just over the border from West Virginia, this little area has all the charm of ...the charm of...of Pennsylvania.    The covered bridges, thick oak forests, and windy roads were great.  Nothing spectacular....

Covered bridges....near Prosperity PA.

Stopped for the night at Uniontown PA, where Geroge C Marshall (ww2 general and formulator of, surprisingly, the Marshall Plan) was born.

George is the one on the right.

Tuesday 2nd June..starting from Uniontown.

Really foggy and of course we had decided to go to the local cave/cavern attraction, about 15 minutes out of town.    By the time we got here through the 20 metre visibility, it was about 30 minutes out of town.    The vermin around these parts is pretty scary...being the end of the school year there were several busses of them.....

The vector for the vermin- those yellow things in the car park.

As caverns/caves go, we have been somewhat over exposed.  The Laurel Caverns  were at best, average. The type of rock formation did not permit the formation of  tites and mites therefor it was just really a dark hole...

The cavern with no flash or lights.

.we have been spoilt.  The schoolkids were supposed to have been on holidays by now but because this last winter has had so many 'snow days' where everyone stays at home because of the snow...the days have to be made up....the teachers must love that!!! And the children were ratty.

It was really good that we got the car with the fixed air conditioning because it hasn't got over 20 deg since Lexingon.

Warning signs -bit strange round this county.

Had our meagre lunch out of the boot (nay trunk) of the car, at a place called Ohiopyle  (my goodness they have strange names here) which is the white water rafting capital of the county.  

 We do, however, think that they lead the field in safety, when all their rafting is done in a wet car park...the risk of drowning is very small.

But those wood chips could splinter.

Flight 93- 9-11

Having been unable to locate the Fallingwaters House, built by the world famous architect Frank Lloyd-Wright, we moved on to a place called Shanksville.

Before the 11th of September, 2001, this was an unknown place.  But for the crashing of flight 93 into a field close to this town, it would remain so.  Arriving  here makes one ponder the fate that brought the passengers, the plane, and this place together.  Whether their actions were any more altruistic than seeking to save their own lives, the result of their actions on this day, undoubtedly brave, prevented this plane from possibly taking thousands of  other lives in DC.   

Rock showing impact site

Flight 93 memorial.

Unfortunately as it is this is a very respectful and appropriate memorial to what happened and what these people did...the 'unfortunately' refers to the super mega duper visitor and interpretavie  center that will shorthand open here.   It will be a memorial to the financiers, architects and builders of an enormous building not to what these poor 40 poor people represented.

Nathalie doing her...stop stop stop, I want to get a photo of this....

Unfortunately we were not quick enough to get our photos in Chambersburg city square.

Small world..

Stoping for the first time at a place called Arby's we were surprised that some one knew where Melbouren was.  It turns out the manager of Arby's in Chanbersburg PA,  spent 14 years in Geelong, whilst her husband, a kiwi, worked at Avalon, and her two sons still live in Australia, one of whom is a plod in Geelong.  Small world.....