Another Tick Problem

Thursday June 13 & Friday June 15, 2013
Tub Run COE Campground
Confluence, PA

 

 

Leaving Virginia

We leave the farm and Charlottesville on Thursday June 12.  We get a late start and only go a short 80 miles to an overnight at Endless Caverns RV resort.  It’s close off I 81 in an area where there really isn’t any place else to stay.  Good thing it was a short trip since we ended up driving in the rain which I hate to do.

 

 

 

 

The Campground has full hook ups and there is the Endless Cavern to tour if you are there long enough.  Campsites on hillsides.  Questionably level.  We use Passport America which is good for only one night.  I think $26.88 for a night on a fairly unlevel campsite on a hillside is a bit steep and can’t imagine who pays the full price.  But it’s the only game in town and is fine for what we need - one night.

 

 

Next stop Tub Run COE

 

On Friday, I’m thinking of Karen who doesn’t like driving in the mountains as we leave the interstate and drive 161  curvy and winding miles uphill and down to Tub Run COE campground in Pennsylvania.  Your diesel would have had an even easier time Karen.

$22 ($11 for seniors) for electric sites of which there are only about 15.  Water available to fill your tank and a dump station.   Of course there is a lake for boating and swimming although none of the sites are on the water.  Lots of fishermen.

 

We are here to see Frank Lloyd Wright’s Fallingwater and Ohiopyle State Park whose campground I felt I needed to see before committing myself.  Since we are arriving on a Friday during the summer I elected to make my reservation at Tub Run a 10 mile drive to the Park and then another 2 miles to Fallingwater.

 

 

 

Another tick problem puts David down for the count.

After we arrive on Friday David isn’t feeling well, he has a fever apparently from another tick he left in too long.  Yes he was out and about on the farm and did not tuck his long pants into his socks in good tick avoidance practice.  Who knows why not.   I am envisioning another hospital horror visit like the one in Harrisburg last year.  His temperature goes up and down from 98.9 to 100 and back and forth.   But mostly he is just tired and sleeps all afternoon.

 

Guess we need to get tickets to Fallingwater.

 

In the later afternoon on Friday, while he is napping and things seem stable, I drive down to Fallingwater but it closed at 4pm.  The sign informs me that I’d better have reservations if I actually want to see the house.  Well then……….problematic since we have no Verizon internet or cell service at Tub Run in spite of David’s latest antenna and booster plan.

No answer when I try to call Fallingwater from the foot of their driveway.  So I get on line and make the reservations using my cell phone.  Boy is it hard to type on that thing.  I really hate to do any money transactions on a phone.  BUT…………….   I was hoping to get an early tour, they open at 10am.   What I find is that all of the times are taken until 2pm so that’s what I take.  $22 for an hour tour of the house and as much time as you like to walk the grounds.   Pretty expensive I think.  But it’s what I came here to see so I put my money down. I buy one for David too, in hopes that he will feel well enough to go.

 

Ohiopyle State Park is a really unique park.

 

On the way to Fallingwater I go through Ohiopyle State Park and find it is an entire town.  Once I have my tickets secured, I return to the park to check out the possibilities.

The park is 2500 acres including the town and a long section with a horseshoe bend of the Youghiogheny  River.  The river has lots of rapids and waterfalls.  It’s a whitewater kayaking haven.  Because it is a town, there is no charge to “enter” the park.   There are many private outfitters for river rafting or kayaking, several restaurants, private homes, single room motels for bikers and kayakers, a Methodist church, and a post office.  It’s a town in a state park; looks like fun.

 

 

 

The park is building a brand new Visitor’s Center so there is construction going on right on the river front.  For now the tourist information bureau is housed in the great old train station.

 

 

Running right by the station on what was the old train bed (tracks removed) is a wonderful rails to trails path called the Allegheny Passage which runs 70 miles from Pittsburg, PA to Cumberland, MD.  From there the very serious bikers can pick up the C&O Canal towpath trail and ride another 75 miles to Washington, D.C.   The trail is hard packed and great riding.  Just beyond the train station, it goes over the river twice heading west.  Super bridges in both cases.

 

Unfortunately due to a medical appointment at Dana Farber in Boston, we have only this afternoon and tomorrow here to see both the park and Fallingwater.   This is definitely a return to spot.

 

After a short look at the town and a visit to the bureau for information,  I get the lay of the land and what there is to do in the park and in the town.  I set off hiking on the Allegheny Passage across the bridges and then to the Cucumber Falls trail  down a lovely path through tall trees reaching for the light.  The falls are full and beautiful.  I walk down stream to where the falls run meets the river and find wild azalea blooming all along the bank.  Upriver in the rapids, the kayakers are playing.  As I walk back up the falls run and see the falls from a distance below it is just as lovely.  Music to my ears.  I can walk nearly up to it and would have walked behind it but I had no one to hold my camera.   Another next time.

 

 

 

 

 

 

   

 

 

 

I’m really sorry I can’t stay and stay, but it is nearly dark and I must go back and see how David is doing.  

I find him awakened from his second nap.  His temperature is down.  I insist he take a couple of Ibuprofen when it goes up again before bedtime.   He has been sleeping now for about 6 hours or so and has had a light supper.   He goes back to bed, and even though he’s been asleep half the day, he sleeps all night.

Time and rest do the trick.  His immune system is not as strong as it once was but it is strong enough to get through this.  His comment is that he guesses he will just have to try to remember that even though he feels fine, he isn’t really.   I SIGH…………

But we can thankfully now go on to our whirlwind Saturday here in the Laurel Highlands of Pennsylvania.