Tuesday, 16 April 2019
[photo of route not yet available]
West Virginia has nice state campgrounds, and Blackwater Falls is no exception. They can't help that there's still snow on the ground, but I wish they'd put a few extra inches on the paving job they did in each campsite - they're barely as wide as my RV, which is not at all among the widest. But still very nice.
And lots and lots of deer all over. Which was a problem first thing in the morning. It was still pitch dark when I took the dogs out for their first walk, and we hadn't been out 3 minutes when they both scented a deer (it had to be, from their reaction) and took off at the same time. I foolishly wasn't prepared and they pulled me over into the mud and tore the leashes out of my hand and disappeared into the darkness.
Thank goodness we were the only ones in the campground. That meant I could call for the dogs without having to also worry about disturbing other campers. And I did call. As loud as I could without triggering an asthmatic coughing fit. DEXTER! GRACIE! over and over and over, so when I'd stop calling to try to hear if they were making a noise the silence seemed odd. There were 2 campground loops and I was afraid to leave the paved drive too much because it was still so dark.
So I walked around both loops calling DEXTER! GRACIE! over and over, and I was part way around a second time when I saw a movement at the edge of the flashlight beam and it was Gracie! I was so relieved to see her that I scared her a little and had to coax her to come. But then I got even more worried because, of the two, Gracie has always been the more reluctant to come when she's called and Dexter has always been willing to come (if he feels like it). Dexter was still wearing his leash and I figured he wasn't coming either because he'd caught a deer and had a mess on his hands (so to speak), or because his leash was wrapped around some bushes trapping him in the underbrush, or because he'd run so far away he couldn't hear me call or figure out which way was home.
So Gracie and I made another circuit with me calling DEXTER! (it sounded odd calling for just him) and finally deciding I needed to wait until daylight, in about another hour.
Gracie and I went back to the RV, I fed her and Lily and had a cup of coffee, and when the sun was up I detached our power cord and battened down the hatches and drove out to see if I could find Dext. The one thing I haven't gotten at any of the state campgrounds is a map - there's not one online and they don't give you one in the park - so I managed to get a wifi signal that gave me an aerial view of the park, so I could try to pick out the roads. And off we went.
I rolled down the windows (and hoped Lily wouldn't get any ideas about jumping out) so I could yell for Dexter as I drove at walking pace down the park roads. Saw lots of deer but figured he couldn't be anywhere nearby because they were so relaxed. Then at one point I came up a hill and saw a parking area to the right, and in that parking area was this black thing. And then I saw it had a bright orange collar, and then that it had a bright green leash, and then that it had a tan walking collar, and finally that it was Dexter! My brain was working at that incredibly slow pace because I'd been so worried, and trying not to become nonfunctional from worry, and trying not to worry until more time had passed, and wondering how on earth I was going to find a black dog in the middle of a mostly undeveloped and unpopulated area - it took some time to penetrate through all that mess that he was really there. Just sitting in the parking area.
So I jumped out of the RV and called him - and I swear it took him a minute too before he responded to me. He turned around to look at me when I called him but just kept sitting there, not responding, until I got closer. He was .7 road miles from the campsite - and I'll bet he crashed through some undergrowth down to one of the roads and followed that along (he's a city dog, after all, so would prefer roads) till he got to the parking area, and stopped to figure out what to do next.
He was happy to get some breakfast and to see Gracie. It took a while before my shakes went away. What a way to start the morning.
Blackwater Falls
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| Blackwater Falls |
Unfortunately, my camera stopped working last night - that snow photo was the last one I took. After that, when I tried to take a photo the camera would beep at me and show an error message and turn itself off, but the lens refused to go back into hiding even though it was off. Because this place is so popular, though, I found a decent photo online. This is just about what I saw, though the trees weren't quite as green yet.
The brown color in the water is from tannin, produced by decaying hemlocks and red spruce needles. About half the water coming over was clear, though, and it was a pretty falls.
Turns out the park built a second pathway for disabled visitors, a gradual ramp instead of steep stairs, and happily we took that way up. It led past huge outcroppings of stone that I thought looked like granite, but a nearby historical marker said sandstone forms the walls of the Falls and produces oil and gas in West Virginia and commercial brines (whatever they are) in the Kanawha and Ohio Rivers. So sandstone, not granite.
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| Junco |
After we left the park I saw a string of windmills along the skyline. There were so many I actually stopped and counted them - 36 of them and it was clear there were more out of sight behind the mountains.
We came to Thomas, WV, "Everyone's Home Town" they say. I was curious about this slogan so looked them up online and found an odd article. www.washingtonpost.com What all these former coal-mining towns are hoping for, I guess.
I passed signs to the Fairfax Stone Historical Monument and started to go down the road, only to discover it was a 1-lane, downhill road when I met a pickup truck (with the license plate of NATV WV on it) coming toward me. I backed up and rethought, and decided I'd just look it up online.
Turns out the original stone was set by surveyors in 1746 to mark ownership of land in the English colonies of Virginia and Maryland at the source of the North Branch of the Potomac River. It became important more recently when the US Supreme Court ruled, in the 1910 case of Maryland v. West Virginia, that the stone marked the point at which Maryland's western border with West Virginia stops running along the Potomac River and heads due north to Pennsylvania. Which is how Maryland's western hook came into being.
I passed the Thomas Quarry for Fairfax Materials, where they mine sandstone and produce ready-mix. What I saw were huge piles of what looked like white sand and black sand and small rock.
According to the map I was running along the far northeastern edge of the Monongahela National Forest; what I saw was a stunning view of a valley with multiple farm fields, most green and a few yellow, bounded by high mountains on the other side (I was pretty high up too on my side). I was sorry I had to pay attention to the road and couldn't stop because it was only the usual 2-lane clinging to the side of a mountain. The sun had come out and it was beautiful. There was still snow but it was melting in the sun.
I passed a sign with an arrow pointing east saying "Maryland High Point." My brain was still not working properly after the early morning upheaval, so it took me a minute to realize I wasn't in Maryland but West Virginia. Maryland's highest point, Backbone Mountain, stretches into WV - apparently I'd been crossing it during the morning drive. (I really have gotten so used to these mountain roads I scarcely notice them anymore.) The peak was only about a mile and a half from where I was. That's where I'd wanted to go when I was in Maryland but was too worried about snow and winding mountain roads. That was then, this is now.
Our Lady of the Pines
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| a small park is around it |
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| the sanctuary |
Cathedral State Park
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| lots of rhododendron |
"Cathedral State Park is an ancient hemlock forest of majestic proportions and one of the last living communities of the vast virgin hemlock forest, which once flourished in the Appalachian Highlands. Trees up to 90' in height and 21' in diameter form cloisters in the park. The average age of the forest is 350 years in age and some trees have reached over 500 years.
"Throughout the woods, eastern hemlock is the climax species. Climax means that the species will eventually crowd everything else out of existence. The hemlock is making the environment suitable just for its own species and other acid loving plants.
"More than 170 species of vascular flora have been catalogued in the park and include 9 species of fern, 3 club moss, over 30 tree species and more than 50 species of wildflower."I didn't see trees as large as they describe, but then we didn't go too far along the trail. I could tell there's a farm nearby, complete with sheep and cows (I heard them), and after this morning was afraid I'd have trouble again with the dogs.
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| St. Paul |
This road came out at Terra Alta, practically a metropolis at 1,400 people, with a nearby fancy resort at Alpine Lake. https://www.alpinelake.com/ You can see it caters to folks with money, but for the life of me I can't figure out how they get here. Do they all helicopter in? There's no way people with that kind of money would want to take a jaunt down these roads.
Because from Aurora Pike I turned onto Brandonville Pike, which was even narrower and more poorly maintained than the previous one. Fifteen miles of that. Passing farms (one with the 10 Commandments posted in a field) and green fields and stone farmhouses and red barns - really picturesque but very hard to appreciate while we're bouncing along these roads. By now we were bumping up and down, and dodging pickup trucks driven with abandon by middle-aged men who had clearly been driving these roads all their lives.
The directions said to turn onto Prison Road, which turned out to be even more narrow and poorly kept, and its only saving grace was that it was only a mile or so before the next turnoff on the Preston Highway, which was a highway only in comparison. But it led to the interstate and, for once in my life, I was thrilled to see an interstate.
But it turned out that wasn't the end of it. By this time I'm exhausted, of course, and the critters probably were too, but I found the road into the campground was almost as bad as the other ones had been. And once inside the campground I found the roads were even worse than that. I'm guessing they hadn't bothered to grade the roads after the winter/spring storms because there were deep ruts and potholes filled so high with water I kept thinking "turn around, don't drown."
But I'd already paid the money for the reservation and, besides, was way too tired to try to find another place to stay. And it was only for one night. And again, no wifi or cell phone signals. But we had a plug-in and the sun was shining, so I counted my blessings.
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