My family took a trip out to Johnstown last summer to spend some time exploring the Johnstown National Flood Memorial which tells the story of the tragic 1889 flood that became one of the worst natural disasters ever seen in the United States. While there, we also took in the sites of Johnstown, visited Johnstown's Grandview Cemetery, where 777 unidentified flood victims are interred, and took a side trip to the Flight 93 National Memorial in Shanksville which our children had never seen. While it was a bit educational, our children very much enjoyed the day's adventure.

Johnstown was actually one of the few historic sites near Pittsburgh that we hadn't yet visited. From the Meadowcroft Rockshelter that provides the earliest evidence of people in all of North America to the first successful oil well in the United States was not drilled in Texas (the Drake Oil Well in Titusville), Western Pennsylvania is a mecca for great hands on history. Have you seen them all?