Cool Places in America~ Trundle Manor

My parents stepped into this place by accident. My mother has a weak bladder and years ago started the habit of forcing my father to pull over and knock on stranger’s doors. Well, one place we stopped was the Trundle Manor around Pittsburgh. 


The house was like a retired steampunk set designer’s dream. It was like Frankenstein’s Monster’s hobby shop workroom. Everything you can imagine from a Flash Gordon episode and Wild America were thrown in a blender and stuck on the wall. It was all sort of cool…in a strange way. I swear the ray gun on the ceiling actually worked. I think I saw a cat, but after I tripped over something and hit this button there was a screech and I never saw the cat again.

 

When we talked to the owners of the house, I think they mentioned they used to live in Salem MA, but they were asked to leave. That is saying something. If you are ever in the area, check them out. Hopefully, you get to stay longer than we did. My mother did not feel comfortable using the john with a stuffed bobcat holding a laser gun at her mounted on the wall.

The house is 10 minutes from downtown in the suburb of Swissvale in Mr. Arm’s and Velda Von Minx’s house. They have given tours to over 3,000 people since 2010. It is open by appointment only, unless someone needs the bathroom, and tours are donation based.

Visit at trundlemanor.com
Trundle Manor
7724 Juniata St
Pittsburgh, Pa, 15218

 ~Tyler

To find out more about Tyler visit Salem House Press and buy Tyler’s latest book “Tyler Moves to Gibsonton Florida” on Amazon.com. Keep checking back often for great cheap vacation ideas that might end up surprising you and becoming the best vacation you ever had! Red proved to be always full of surprises…  

Cool Places in America~ Rainbow Bridge

Do I need to say more…

Watkins Glen, New York, October 2009

Watkins Glen State Park is in western New York, in the village of Watkins Glen, at the southern tip of Seneca Lake. 
 ~Tyler

To find out more about Tyler visit Salem House Press and buy Tyler’s latest book “Tyler Moves to Gibsonton Florida” on Amazon.com. Keep checking back often for great cheap vacation ideas that might end up surprising you and becoming the best vacation you ever had! Red proved to be always full of surprises…  

A Bike Ride to Hammond Castle and Tales of Tesla and Mark Twain

Hello everyone,
Here is another amazing place I have been to this month. It is Hammond Castle in the Magnolia section of Gloucester, MA. It was inspired by a failed attempt to take over the Transvaal area of South Africa before the Boer War, an ass-kicking, and a possible lynching that the ever-interesting Mark Twain stopped.

John Hammond Sr. was a geologist working for Cecil Rhodes who created Apartheid and the nation Rhodesia. After their failure in that revolt and near death, John the father was recuperating in England as his son ran around playing in the ruins of castles. He liked this activity so much he brought many of the ruins back himself to build his own. Castle, not ruin.

In time Mark Twain would meet Nikola Tesla and bring him north out of the fancy restaurants in NYC and introduce him to the Hammonds. John Hammond Jr. was so enamored by Tesla he wrote for some time trying to get the famous inventor to create the Tesla-Hammond Wireless Electric Company. In the end, after some psychic experiments, the Hammonds would screw Tesla over with the father investing heavily in copper to make wire for utility companies to hang from telephone poles crushing Tesla dreams of free electricity and his son robbing him of expired patents which would make his fortune with remote control missiles and boats.

Either way, it is a cool mansion you should check out!

Hammond castle and Chris DowginHamond Castle doorhammond Castle towerHammond Castle arcade and Ocean viewHammond Castlehammond Castle