Little Rock City - 10/13/12

Stony Brook State Park - 9/22/12

West Virginia - July 2012

Last month we took a half week mini-vacation to West Virginia. 8 adults and 1 toddler rented a house in Minden. An old coal mining town.

Blackwater Falls

The view from Spruce Knob - the highest point in West Virginia. In the Monongahela National Forest.

The New River Gorge

The boulders at the bottom of the gorge in the river are as big as houses. I know this because.......

..........that's right, we rafted the Class 5 rapids in the New River!   

They had a girl in a kayak paddle ahead of us, pull over on a rock, and take video and snap pictures of us going through the roughest rapids.

Thurmond, WV is a ghost town down in the gorge. Thurmond once had more freight pass through than the next 2 stations on the C&O line combined! - Cincinnati and Richmond. This was due to all the coal that they would mine in the gorge and then ship out. The track still runs through town and the National Park Service maintains a visitor center in the old station.

Some shots of the tipple at the old coal mining operation at Nuttalburg. A tipple was a long chute that brought coal from the mine up on the hillside down to railroad level, which was along the river, and then it was dropped directly into the waiting coal cars.

Fort Niagara - 7/14/12

 Fort Niagara is at the mouth of the Niagara River on Lake Ontario.  It was been a strategic military location in colonial times.

Allegany S.P. Historical Society retreat - 6/8-10/12

One of the park naturalists telling us all about bats.

Arachnids, butterflies, bugs n' stuff.

The beautiful babbling brook that flows past Camp Allegany.

The camp was also occupied by dozens of barn swallows. This one had a nest in the eaves of the mess hall. It would spy on us whenever we would hang out on the porch.

Yvonne had some car trouble. Some of us tried to figure out what was going on.

We took a hike down to Wolf Run.

A beaver pond and dam on Wolf Run. Roberta did see one beaver.

We visited the Carnahan cemetery up in the Wolf Run area.

The old Wolf Run road. Something tells me it doesn't get maintenance other months of the year either.

Wolf Run

Brown Hollow is a small valley that branches off from Wolf Run. There's some interesting foundations of a mill and other buildings but we didn't have time to go visit them.

Another shot of Wolf Run road.

This is the clearing where the Wolf Run school used to be. Note the 90 degree bend in the line of trees. Every Arbor Day the students would plant a new tree. They managed to get about 2/3 of the way around the property.

Before dinner. Bob is undoubtedly announcing something important. Julie can't break her concentration in trying to beat May Kay at Scrabble. That's my girl! :)

Justin and Andy cooking up some delicious food. These guys cooked all weekend for 50 people!

A rip roarin bonfire.

Sally Marsh working the crowd.

The mist that night was pretty awesome.