Hills and Heritage

Pausing from studying for my candidacy exam on Saturday, I had the opportunity to play tour guide in Randolph and Pocahontas counties in West Virginia. Without even consciously thinking about it, transportation was a central theme to our activities.

We kicked off the trip with some geocaching, taking us out Kingwood Pike from Morgantown to West Virginia Route 92 in Reedsville, then down Route 92 into Durbin.

Our first stop beyond Morgantown was along the Decker’s Creek Rail Trail in Reedsville. Reedsville is the end of the trail and seemingly a world away from the trail’s other end on the waterfront in Morgantown. The trail is quieter and rather than hemmed into narrow valleys with roads and the creek, it is between a farm and a sprawling industrial operation. The trail is, almost uncharacteristically, in a broad open valley.

After Reedsville, the next community is Arthurdale. Arthurdale was one of the planned communities of the New Deal intended to move impoverished miners and farmers and place them into a contemporary rural community where they could be self-sufficient. The idea lost support by World War II and less than a decade after its beginning the project officially ended. The entire town is now a National Historic District.

We continued on through the towns of Newburg and Belington, with a stop in the graveyard of the oldest church in Barbour County. We met up with Corridor H, which is possibly the greatest political quagmire in highway history, and followed it to Crystal Springs Road to follow Route 92 through central Elkins and even witnessed part of a Civil War reenactment in Beverly. After following some slow moving tree removal equipment over Cheat Mountain we arrived in Durbin.

West Virginia is home to a number of excellent scenic tourist trains, the Durbin and Greenbrier Valley Railroad’s Durbin Rocket is no exception! The two-hour trip follows the Greenbrier River south toward Cass. After about 45 minutes the train takes a stop along the river where passengers can get out and, in my case, wade in the river. On such a hot day the cool water felt great, I could have stood in that river all day. On the trip back to Durbin the train stopped at a creek to take on water. Here they demonstrated how the steam engine is able to pump water up from the creek. The train took on about 1000 gallons and took about 10 minutes. The minutes seemed to drag on, but a rate of 100 gallons per minute actually seemed pretty impressive.

The Greenbrier River from the Durbin Rocket

Just before returning to Durbin a rain began to set in. We grabbed two quick geocaches on Cheat Mountain, one at an overlook and one at the summit, and hurried on to find a place for dinner. We lucked out and found some excellent homecooking at the Dailey Grille, seemingly the only place to grab a bite in Dailey. That country fried steak will not soon be forgotten.

The finishing touch of the day was visiting the American Mountain Theater in Elkins. The Branson-style show was non-stop entertainment, whether it was the contemporary country songs, comedic dialogue, or deeply moving gospel selections. Most impressive, the incredible talents performing also perform the less glamorous tasks of operating a theater, from scooping popcorn to ticket sales. Of course, the highlight of the show was a crack at Corridor H, the road that’ll be completed in the lifetime of the host’s grandchildren!