Pleasant Hill Shaker Village

On our way to Louisville, we stopped at the Pleasant Hill Shaker Village, about 25 miles south of Lexington. Pleasant Hill was founded in 1805 after Shaker missionaries came to participate in camp meetings in Kentucky. At its height Pleasant Hill had 500 residents, divided into five families. The village lasted until 1910. Its downfall occurred from a combination of the Civil War and bad business decisions. During the Civil War, the Shakers were pacifists who opposed slavery. However, they were not attacked by either side. However, 10,000 troops passed through the Turnpike to the left on their way to and from battles, particularly the Perryville campaign in 1862. The Shakers fed the troops and treated the wounded, at great personal sacrifice. After the Civil War many converts came to Pleasant Hill, some because they were disabled and couldn't support their families, some widows with children, and some orphan children. As a result there were children in Pleasant Hill. Prior to the Civil War the Shakers had made and sold brooms, boxes, seeds and the first medicines available from a catalogue, mainly to southern markets. Those markets dried up after the war. That, combined with the industrial revolution which improved the lives of all people so that the relatively prosperous life represented in Pleasant Hill was no longer such an attraction, plus some bad business decision caused the abandonment of Pleasant Hill in 1910.



This is Centre Family House, home to 100 men and women who lived on separate sides of the house. They ate in the house, had an infirmary, and met for evening Meetings in an upstairs room. The building was designed by a man who also designed many of the other buildings in the village. He placed the buildings to take advantage of the Kentucky winds and ensured that every room had cross ventilation. There was a cupola that opened to let the hot air out. There was an infirmary, over the kitchen, to treat the ill.
One of the things that the Amish manufactured was brooms. This man still does so. The Shakers used to raise broom straw, though it is now imported from Mexico. In addition to making floor brooms (which last for decades), he makes turkey wing wisk brooms, pot scrubbers, cake testers, etc. He was a font of information. Among other things, there are about 190 employees.
This shows the dual stair cases in Centre Family House (used separately by men and women). One of the Shaker beliefs is that since man sinned they must be celebate. This photo also shows the lovely design of Centre House (arches and wood work).

Monticello, VA

Thomas Jefferson built Monticello (little mountain) over a period of 40 years. He started by flattening a mountain top on the 5000 acres he inherited. He and his wife began living in one of the small houses at the ends of the L's that embrace the main building. Monticello was busy (even though it was a Monday in October). We had a tour of the house, including the green house, Jefferson's third library (one was destroyed by fire and the second was donated to what became the National Archives), his room filled with evidence of his multiple interests, and the entry hall filled with artifacts from Lewis and Clark and others which were intended to educate people while they waited to see Jefferson.
There was no good water source at Monticello, which is on the top of a hill. Jefferson built four cisterns and collected rainwater. Since the L's were built underground with walkways on their roofs, he made the roof corrugated (note the different width beams in this photo) to collect additional rainwater. Jefferson also designed an underground corridor which connected each L under the main house. There were store rooms, a wine cellar (NPR says that will be open to the public next year with a lot of information about the types of wines Jefferson collected) with a dumb waiter to carry bottles to the Sitting Room, a cider/beer cellar, etc.
Jefferson became a devotee of French cuisine after he served as the US Ambassador to France. He brought one slave with him to be trained as a French chef. Monticello's kitchen included this 8-burner stove which permitted the simmering of sauces. The copper pots came from France. The kitchen also had a fireplace with a spit which operated by means of a weighted pulley system and a baking oven.
Monticello also includes this huge garden (1000' long) which was originally surrounded by a palisade wood wall. The garden was built on a flat ledge which was partially built on a stone wall. In the garden Jefferson experimented with over 350 different varieties of vegetables. Below the vegetable garden was an orchard with more than 150 different varieties of trees. Jefferson did a lot of grafting himself.

We walked from here to his gravestone which famously remembers him only for the Declaration of Independence, the Virginia freedom of religion clause in its constitution and the creation of the University of Virginia and ignores his service as VP, President and ambassador, positions Jefferson thought it was simply his duty to fill.

Jefferson, had about 200 slaves and only freed about 7 during his lifetime. Though he abhorred slavery and had promised the slaves freedom at his death, due to the huge debts on the plantation, they were all sold.

University of Virginia

We headed off from Tunkhannock after a stop in Wilkes Barre to have the power converter (which converts 110 to DC and runs all the lights in Snoopy) replaced. We had an unpleasant experience with the service provider, but they had us and we had to pay more than we had agreed to. We went down to Kendal (near Philadelphia) to visit my Aunt Allie (94) who is still very sharp. She told us some more things about the Cottage (which was built in 1908). I had remembered a huge washing machine made out of a barrel in the basement. She said it was a commercial washing machine purchased by Louis and Caroline since there were 3 kids in diapers. Then we headed to Newtown Square to visit Albert Fletcher, the father of our Corvallis vet. When we got there, the Volvo refused to start. Bob spent a long time dealing with AAA to get a tow, etc., but when he finally went out to meet the tow truck it started again (Yeah!!!!). We took off towards Gettysburg, where we arrived about 10 p.m. (the latest we've arrived anywhere on this journey). We ended up stopping in York PA at Sal's Italian restaurant for really good pizza.

The next morning we took off towards Skyline Drive in Virgina via the back roads. Skyline drive goes right along the narrow spine of a mountain range. It was designed as a national park in the 1930's specifically for cars, so it has multiple viewpoints. It was intended to give East Coast residents a taste of the outdoors. Over the years, it has grown more wild.

We arrived in Charlottesville, VA where my friend Madelyn Wessel (a fellow higher ed attorney) and her husband (a fellow MD/PhD diabetes expert) and their two dogs (Penelope the Springer Spaniel and Keppler the beagel) live. Madelyn had a wonderful dinner for us when we arrived and gave us a tour of the University of Virginia on Friday. Here we are in the back of the gardens along the Academical Village. The gardens are behind the Pavillions where VPs, the Provost and other high-ranking administrators live. They are open to the public and anyone can go in and sit down to eat or enjoy the space.

Thomas Jefferson designed the Academical Village. This view shows the Pavillions (with the tall columns) and the Student Rooms (behind the smaller columns). Seniors, chosen by their peers, live in the Student Rooms, each with its own fire place and no bathroom. The Rotunda was closed for Board of Visitor meetings, but we went up to the dome room.

This is a picture of the walls that surround the Academical Village. They are all serpentine. When Madelyn went back to work, we visited the Special Collections. One was on North American Maps from 1500-1800. The other was the Albert H. Small Declaration of Independence Collection. It includes one of the first 25 Broadsides of the Declaration of Independence distributed to newspapers and elsewhere the day after the Declaration was agreed to, various letters related to it, examples of various reprints of the Declaration and various takeoffs (including one promoting temperence).

More Tunkhannock Photos

This photo shows the beginning of the fall colors in Tunkhannock. As we drove south, the colors became less pronounced.
Some of the historic houses in Tunkhannock. This is the Piatt-Ogden House, built in 1896 by a local lawyer.

The view from the look out over the Susquehanna. The property across the river is owned by the Nature Conservancy. The Susquehanna at this point makes a huge goose neck, called the Narrows. Tunkhannock is in the center right of the photo. Our property does not include the look out, though we do own some property down on the river in the center right of the photo.

Reflections on Tunkhannock

Bob and I returned to Tunkhannock the end of September in order to fit in a visit with friends in Virginia who weren't returning from Germany until October 1. As we were driving from Connecticut to Tunkhannock, just prior to stopping at a disc golf course east of Scranton, we got a phone call from Markus asking when we were going to arrive. The masons and the cement truck were arriving Friday morning at 7:30 to finish the back of the garage space under the Cottage and were also going to pour the floor for the GARN unit in the carriage house. To be ready, we needed to spread gravel and place steel mesh in the Carriage House and Markus was alone (though Tiny Sands was coming with a skid steer to help move the gravel). We pushed on to Tunkhannock and Markus and Bob worked till about 9 p.m. to get everything ready. We all woke up the next morning to dig the space and build the form around the pad for the emergency generator in the Carriage House. We finished just in time for the cement pour.

Markus left Monday afternoon and Bob and I were alone in Tunkhannock. We stayed in the Cottage and would work part of most days. We finished the following jobs:

1. Placed rocks as steps at the opposite end of the pond from the beach. Since the pond had to be lowered to repair the leak this is the only time these rocks could be placed.
2. Repaired a portion of the drive that had eroded with large rocks and gravel.
3. Finished installing the south window and door in the living room and put foam around the west facing windows.
4. Removed the wood frames from around the concrete slabs in the Carriage House.
5. Moved almost all the tools and supplies from the porch to the basement and organized them.
6. Raked and shoveled dirt around the door slabs on the back of the house.
7. Put more gravel into the Carriage House next to the GARN slab so there is a flat surface to walk on to place wood.
8. Painted two coats (primer and enamel) on the roof of the Horse Shed.

It turns out that Markus and I egg each other on into a frenzy of work. When Bob and I left Tunkhannock, we were exhausted (as was Markus). I was trying to keep up with Markus and he was trying to keep up with me. Bad combination. We understand that we have to slow down in the future. Without Markus around, Bob and I rarely worked more than 3-4 hours a day, a much more reasonable pace. We also had to slow down due to three days of steady rain.

As a result, we also did a lot of fun things. We visited Steamtown National Historic Site in Scranton. This is a working steam engine repair facility with a working round table and repaired steam trains and a great museum. Since it was mid-week and after school started, there were not a lot of people. We took a tour to the repair facility, which was really interesting. The facility has collected lots of machines necessary for repair of steam engines and cars and they are actively repairing engines. The top two photos are of the UP engine (25 of the largest steam engines in the world were built for UP to go over the Rockies) with a little switch engine and the turn table in the round house operating. We spent most of a day at Steamtown. There is also an electric trolley museum next door that we didn't visit.

The Deiterich Theater in Tunkhannock has a film festival in the fall. We went to one movie every day. We saw the following films:

American Teen - A documentary of HS seniors in NE Indiana, including the most popular girl, her cohort and various outcasts. It is an amazingly frank look at the lives of teen agers, sex, drugs, depression, etc. The movie also uses animation to express some of the dreams of the teens. Highly recommended.

The Children of Huang Shi (starring Johathan Rhys-Meyers) - A true story of an English journalist who sneaks into China to cover the Sino-Japanese war who ends up running an orphanage. The orphans are all boys and to avoid conscription into the army, he takes them on a 500 mile trek through the mountains in winter. It's called the Mini Long March. The scenery is fabulous, the story amazing, and there is great acting. Highly recommended.

Elsa and Fred (in Spanish) - A love story among septagenarians. A very sweep film which we enjoyed immensely.

Encounters at the End of the World (by Werner Herzog who directed Grizzly Man) - A story about McMurdo Station in Antarctica and all the strange people, inveterate travellers, who end up there. The photography is stunning, the science being conducted on volcanos, penguins, under ice organisms, etc. is really interesting and the interviews with the people are quirky. Highly recommended.

The Last Mistress (in French) - This was the one movie we didn't really like. It is beautifully photographed, but is about a young man who has a long-term liaison with a mistress. There was lots of sex and sexually explicit discussions, but it left us cold.

Mongol (in Mongolian) - This is the story of Ghengis Khan and gives one a different perspective on this man's life. The photography is gorgeous and the battle scenes are like some of those epic battle scenes in the Tolkein trilogy. Apparently he was a very devoted husband and father, though he spent more time away from his family than with it and his wife was almost as amazing as he was. Highly recommended.

Transsiberian (with Woody Harrelson, Emily Mortimer and Ben Kingsly) - This is a thriller set on the Transsiberian RR. It was the first movie we saw, and though there is some violence, the story is gripping. Highly recommended.

Up the Yangtse (in Chinese) - This is a movie about the effect of the construction of the Three Gorges Dam and the people in its wake, seen partly through the eyes of tourists riding up-river on a boat. There are haunting pictures of these markers along the river showing where the flooding will rise to. The movie is seen partly through the experiences of two people who work on the boat, one a self-centered young man who speaks good English and the other a very poor girl who wants to go to school but whose parents need her to work and send money home. The photography is beautiful and the effects of this dam on the people is brought out through the two stories. Highly recommended.

Vicky Cristina Barcelona (Woody Allen's latest film) - This is a truly funny film about love in Spain. It's better than a lot of Woody Allen's recent films, but I'm not a total fan. Recommended.

The Visitor - This is a fabulous film about the interaction between a widowed economics professor from Connecticutt who comes back to his Greenwich Village apartment to find an African couple living there. The man plays drums and teaches the professor. The women makes jewelry and sells it on the streets. It was the best movie we saw; investigating the problems of illegal immigrants and the US policy about them.

Ann and Vern arrived on Sunday for two days and we walked around Tunkhannock looking at the historic houses. We also drove out to Nicholson to show them the Nicholson viaduct (the longest cement bridge in the world). It was built to shorten, straighten and remove track crossings on the railroad in the 1920's. The owner of the Lackawanna RR spent the equivalent of $1B to make all sorts of repairs and improvements to the RR to move freight faster, and thus earn more money. We also walked out to the overlook 500' above the Susquehanna (Bob hadn't seen that either).