I heard the song "Little Pink Houses" by John Mellencamp a few days ago and it made me sad. I may live in Central Pennsylvania, but I am not from there. I am from Ohio, and lived in Indiana for a few years. I really loved living in Indiana and felt very at home there. Driving in the country there always made me think of that song and hearing it recently made me feel a little homesick. When we lived here, my husband would complain about driving to work in a tunnel of corn to perpetuity, but the heartland will always be my home.
Fortunately, the mountains here are beautiful and places that are worth visiting are much more accessible than back in the heartland. The Midwest is landlocked and there are not that many interesting places to visit without a pretty lengthy pilgrimage. I have always had a great love of travel. I am back at work and have very little time to write, so I put together some of my favorite pictures of some of the places I have visited in the United States.
St Mary's Cathedral- San Francisco, CA. Absolutely beautiful, but an odd design that towers over the city and sometimes lends itself to the nicknames St Whirlpool and Our Lady of the Eternal Spin Cycle.
Nordstrom Shoe Department, San Francisco, CA- some of the most awesome shoe shopping available, and I am hard to please!
The Leapfrog Fountain at Epcot Center, Disneyworld. Kids still love to try to catch the stream of water on their chest and get soaked.
Sunset on Duck, OBX, NC. The ice cream shop owners had the right idea to set up shop on the boardwalk facing the sound. Every night, a huge crowd gathers for ice cream, photo ops and lots of oohs and ahhs. Always a great show.
The Big Bean in Chicago. I had no idea of the enormity of this thing until I saw it myself. I would have never thought that one person, let alone a couple dozen could fit under it.
Raystown Lake, Huntington County, PA. Man made lake from creation of a hydroelectric generating dam. Has now become a big local summer escape in central PA. It is a great place to watch the leaves turning in the Fall (but do not make me think about that little slice of Hell coming). Also a good bird watching site as there is a pair of bald eagles that nest nearby the dam. I got a great view of one last Fall.
 Not the best shot of a double rainbow I have taken, but it is still a double rainbow, which is always a treat, so I included it. This one was taken at Seven Springs Ski Resort near Somerset, PA. |
I love lighthouses and will visit
them every chance I get. This on is the () Light along the Lake Michigan coast in Michigan.
The Chapel in the Hill is an amazing work of architecture build into hill in Sedona Arizona. The view is amazing. Quite an awe inspiring place to go to mass in.
I took this handsome young man to the Cherry Blossom Festival and learn about our nation's heritage for the first time when he was two. Washington DC is only about a 3 hour drive so is an easy drive for a long weekend and one of my favorite side trips. We were fortunate enough to be able to pose with the portrait of one of our heros- Stephen Colbert the "National Treasure".
The train in Strassburg, Pennsylvania is a restored steam engine from the 19th century. It is located in the heart of Pennsylvania Dutch country in Eastern, PA.
The Mohave dessert outside Las Vegas is far more beautiful to me than Las Vegas and was one of the highlights of one of my trips to Las Vegas.
Unlike the casinos, I also found Hoover Dam to be a quite interesting part of one of my trips to Las Vegas. I actually thought that how the electrical wires were strung was fascinating.
Although the city was fast to clean up the tourist areas, years later, many parts of New Orleans remain abandoned. Areas the border along Lake Pontchartrain have sections where there is still an eerie silence when you drive through and although a few home have been rebuilt, every other property left is a total loss.
