Written Wednesday from Bulltown Camp, WV. No Internet! Posted Thursday from Shenango Lake, PA.
Evening Campers! Silver Cliche' here
with you again.
Greetings from Wild, Wonderful West
Virginia!
We are two states away from where we
started this morning in Tennessee. Let me share how we got here.
We had our normal rise and shine
routine... no fried bread today though. We had electricity... and
internet!... so we caught up on the news and correspondence and ate
breakfast like normal folks. We knew that either today or tomorrow
had to be a longer drive than normal to keep on schedule for a
Friday arrival in Buffalo. We had no
reservations for tonight or tomorrow since many campgrounds in the
northern parts of the country stop taking reservations after Labor
Day and go to a "walk up" plan. We had a few potential
sites picked and decided to head off and see where we landed.
Our first stop was for gas. We burn
about 20 gallons a day when we travel on a 3 hour schedule so we are
constantly looking for our next "fix". We stopped at an
Exxon between the campground and the interstate and tanked up. While
the tank filled I snapped this picture of the sign for the station we
were patronizing:
It wasn't clear to me what some of
those characters were intended to represent in the context of
gasoline. It seemed to be a throwback but I couldn't quite remember
the last time I had seen a sign like that. I asked one of the other
folks there and they said that sign says "Welcome to
Tennessee!". I like Tennessee. I think their friendly culture
and Southern hospitality should be exported to all corners of the
country! Especially the ones where we will be buying gas in the
coming weeks.
On we pressed heading north.
We soon crossed into Virginia and
watched as the terrain became more mountainous. We were on the west
side of the Blue Ridge Mountains in far southwestern Virginia. It
turns out we had been there before with truck, trailer and dogs since
our route home from New Jersey last fall included an overnight at
Grayson Highlands State Park. The Blue Ridge includes many high
peaks. Our camping spot at Grayson Highlands was over 4,800 above sea
level. That park is inhabited by wild ponies that roam the high
country. The October night we spent there last year the wind blew 40
mph and the morning temp was 34 degrees. Enough to drive us
Floridians out of the mountains. Our next stop after that was Myrtle
Beach, SC! The Blue Ridge also includes small towns that time has
passed by, beautiful streams and lakes and several roads (Skyline
Drive and the Blue Ridge Parkway being the best known) that allow
city people from Washington, Richmond, Raleigh, Charlotte, Nashville
and just about any other place to make their annual pilgrimage to the
great out doors. Today it was empty and mostly overcast. Many of the
peaks were not easily seen from the interstate. However, on any clear
Saturday or Sunday in October when the leaves are changing the
excitement that one usually only encounters competing for a spot in
the just-opened checkout lane at Whole Foods moves to the Blue Ridge.
We'll take an overcast Wednesday in September, thank you. We pressed
on.
The morning moved quickly. We reached
3,000 at one point. We passed through two tunnels in the mountains
(those each probably saved us an additional 1,000 feet of pavement
climbing!). Soon we entered Wild, Wonderful West Virginia! We saw
signs for a place called Tamarack in Beckley, WV. It promised a cross
section of West Virginia crafts, arts and food. A quick consultation
with TripAdvisor said we might like it as a lunch stop so we reset
the GPS to take us there. Beckley is everything you would expect in a
West Virginia town. It's old, gritty, hilly and slowly expanding like
a pool of spilled molasses with a more modern edge. Tamarack was
interesting and included some beautiful handmade furniture, pottery,
and other items from artisans around the state (all for sale, of
course, but we left with our wallets intact). The restaurant which
was supposedly prepared by chefs from the famous Greenbriar resort
was actually a cafeteria. A nice cafeteria, for sure. But a cafeteria
none-the-less. We've stayed at the Greenbriar and I don't recall
walking a cafeteria line with a fiberglass tray there.
After lunch we toured Beckley a bit and
Mrs. C' performed a light sampling of their shopping options. You can
see evidence of the past and present of this area as you drive around
towns like Beckley. There is a preponderance of industrial businesses
(we went past one large shop dedicated to welding supplies) there are
rail lines all over and occasionally pieces of very heavy equipment.
I think I saw more junked equipment than pieces that are in service.
Why is that? West Virginia and Kentucky are coal country. The current
state of these States is driven by the efforts from Washington to
move from fossil fuels to renewables. Somewhere in California there
is a family living well off the job that was created by Federal
subsidies and loan guarantees being made to companies that build
solar panels, wind turbines and electric cars. One day we will all
have to pay those loans back once the Chinese decide they want their
money back. For every one of those stories there are two people in
West Virginia whose jobs in the coal industry were lost when the EPA
lowered the sights of its regulatory guns on coal. A good thing for
the environment? A bad thing for the US energy industry and its
workers? I can't tell you. The only overt signs that West Virginians
are fighting back are precisely that... signs. Throughout the state
we see occasional billboards promoting coal and West Virginia's proud
history supplying it to the rest of the country. Change always hits
someone hard.
When planning and preparing for this
trip, I thought of today's route with one place in mind...New River
Gorge. Some of you may recognize the name. Depending on which sign
you believe, the gorge is home to the longest steel arch bridge in
the world or in the Western Hemisphere (don't ask me that follow on
question... as I'll explain later we are in an internet void and I
can't answer it... you know how to use Google...type away!). An arch
bridge is precisely what it sounds like... a half circle of support
for the roadway which in the case of the New River Gorge Bridge is
entirely under the road deck. To make this design sensible on this
scale only two things are needed. 1.) enough steel to build an
aircraft carrier and 2. a massive ditch in which to erect the steel
and the huge concrete footings that hold it up. We are not far from
Pittsburgh (more on that tomorrow) so steel is not a problem and
nature provided a ditch nearly a mile wide and 900 feet deep in which
to place it. The result is spectacular. Here, let me show you some
shots:
The day wasn't prefect for bridge pics
since it was a bit overcast and the sun had moved beyond the point
where the side of the bridge facing the observation deck was
illuminated. I didn't care. For your benefit I gladly walked to each
point on the trail including the bottom from which today's panorama
was shot:
A sign at the point where I took this
pic explains that the distance from the river below to the bottom of
the arch would allow the Washington Monument to be placed there with
two Statues of Liberty placed one above the other and not touch. I
think there was something about the upper Liberty being able to brush
her hair in the gap remaining above her head, but I had gotten the
point and thought the sign maker was carrying on a bit too much with
the analogy. You get the point. It's tall. To give a sense of how
tall, look at the pic above. About ¼ of the way in from the left
there is a fuzzy gray thing dropped across the river. That is the
original two lane bridge that was functionally replaced by the new
bridge in the 1970s. The trip that was enabled by that bridge and a
45 minute drive is now down to less than a minute thanks to steel and
concrete used in abundance on the far right of the picture. Also,
this bridge was the scene of countless unauthorized pranks of the
daredevil kind. You know... parachuting, bungee jumping and such...
oh, those daredevils! In a rare show of sensible surrender to the
powerful forces of testosterone and mental illness, the government
(I'm not sure which one... State of WV, some “bridge authority”...
I don't know... “the government”) closes the bridge one day a
year for... yep... “Bridge Day”. This is kind of like Sadie
Hawkins Day for loonies. The BASE jumpers and other thrill seekers
own the bridge for a day. The most common use of the structure made
that day (which is coming up in October) is to jump off the railing
on the side of the bridge in the panorama above and land (hopefully)
on the sandy spot along the river where you can see a blue bus parked
about 900' below. I've seen that event covered on the national news
as a closing piece (“Now before we sign off, let's see what some
crazy people in West Virginia did today while you were cutting the
lawn and washing the car... makes our lives look a little boring,
doesn't it Bob?”). Stay tuned to your TV for that and you'll now
know more about where they are and what's happening.
After the bridge, it was another hour
and a quarter to here at Bulltown Camp, WV. This is a Corps of
Engineers site which means... water! We are lakeside at one of the
Corps projects on Burnsville Lake. There is a Civil War battlefield
here too. The weather was hot when we pulled in at 4:30... around
90... but we found a shady spot open with the lake behind us. Here's
what we look like tucked in for the night:
When we arrived I opened the awning as
a sign we felt committed to the place and as a way to keep the
setting sun off the side of the trailer. Within 20 minutes, the sun
was gone behind a cloud, the wind kicked up to 20 MPH or more and the
rain came. I quickly retracted the awning (heavy wind and rain are
not healthy for a 150 sq ft sail supported by light aluminum arms)
and retreated into the shelter of the trailer. Dinner was grilled
cheese sandwiches (Not Wonder Bread and American cheese... sprouted 7
grain bread with 1/4” thick slices of aged cheddar cooked on low
until the bread is golden and the cheese just starts to ooze out of
the side of the sandwich. After cooking, the sandwich must be set to
rest like a steak just off the grill then cut diagonally before
serving. We're campers... not barbarians!) with a fresh salad of
tomato, avocado and fresh mozzarella with an olive oil drizzle. The
rain makes a soothing sound on the roof of the trailer. Since we're
all metal outside it has that “rain on tin roof” sound that
country singers and poets famously describe. If a visiting
metallurgist ever says “I don't know... that sounds more like rain
on aluminum than rain on tin to me.” he can walk home. Anyway, the
temperature dropped considerably with the rain. Judging by the
national forecast, I think autumn may have just arrived in West
Virginia. Oh... and summer seems to have taken the internet with it.
I'll post this whenever we get back to civilization.
Tomorrow on through Pittsburgh and
into northwest Pennsylvania somewhere near Erie.
Later!
SC'
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