Janet and Di came to visit for the weekend arriving Friday night - wine and cheese,dogs and cats. I had given them a couple of choices as to what we would be doing this weekend, an asylum or one of the greatest architectural wonders of the 21 st century - decisions decisions. They couldn't decide so I figured out how to do both. I called the Trans- Allegheny Lunatic Asylum first, a cheery employee told me the tickets are sold on site and since they run tours every hour it's not a problem getting a tour. They have quite a variety I might say including an overnight one that you can bring all your own ghost hunting equipment and according to the pamphlet you are "released at 5am". After that I went online to check the tour schedule for Falling Waters - glad I did that at the beginning of the week instead of waiting! Saturday was already sold out and Sunday was going fast. You need to reserve ahead of time so I got us in for the afternoon tour on Sunday. On Saturday we headed out,the asylum is 70 miles from here but it's almost all highway so we made great time. The staff is all dressed as the staff was at the turn of the century and the asylum is huge. The tour we took covers four floors and takes two hours but it only covers 20% of the asylum. The floorspace covers 9 acres total, originally built for 250 patients and at the height housed 2500. Our guide was wonderful - it was a two hour history lesson starting with the civil war and ending when it closed in 1993 She told us at one time the inmates had been shipped in boxes, the staff would meet them at the train, transport the boxes back to the asylum and let them out there. The nurses were paid eight dollars a month and charged $12 a month for room and board . The tour itself was wonderful they gave you time to walk around look in the rooms, take as many pictures as you liked and ask questions. After the tour we went out to lunch then headed out to Clarksburg to visit David at the house he's renovating. On the way home we stopped at the local winery then back home to barbecue. We spent the rest of the evening sitting outside and drinking wine and catching up with each other it was really a very nice evening. The next morning found us back in the car on our way to falling Waters it's not as far though so it took us less than an hour to get there. We checked in at the gate where they ask your confirmation number and check that you have the appropriate amount of people. This tour was different than the previous day, you were told no bags, no pictures in the house itself, stay with the guide, no touching wood, pictures fabrics. Unfortunately we had the Jerk and His Wife who were of course taking pictures. The guide very politely reminded them no pictures and I swear that ass smirked at his wife and took another one! Wrong move jerk - the guide yelled and the next thing we know the security guard comes flying in yelling at the idiot and backs him up, he was right in his face. You can be assured that was the last picture he took. Falling Waters is amazing, my pictures don't even come close to doing it justice, if you're ever in the area make sure you do the tour. After we headed home and waited for Adam to get in, then went out to Ruby Tuesdays for dinner. They left for home after that as they have to deal with holiday shoppers and traffic in their neck of the woods. All in all it was a very nice weekend.
No comments:
Post a Comment