Christmas Eve Adventure

One of my favorite things to do is hop in my car and explore. About once a week, or at least two or three times each month, my husband hop in the car for an adventure. Weather was looking good here in West Virginia during the day of December 24, so we took the opportunity to visit some of the more remote areas within an hour or two of Morgantown.

Traveling from Morgantown, WV our first stop was Cool Spring Park (description from Roadside America). Cool Springs is a general store with a lunch counter, though during CoVID-19 they are not allowing indoor dining, and a graveyard of industrial objects from bygone days to explore (during the warmer months). The variety of products is impressive and sometimes entertaining. The hot chocolate on a cool day is was perfect. Cool Springs is also a helpful gas stop, gas stations are fewer and further between on U.S. Route 50.

From Cool Springs Park, we took toward the town of Eglon to find a geocache in the cemetery. The geocache, My Little Black Bird, was placed in celebration of Maison Sharp, a child who brought joy to his family but could not stay with us on earth for very long.

Eglon Community Cemetery

From Eglon we made our way to the towns of Thomas and Davis, along the way we stopped to admire the windmills along U.S. Route 219. Another interesting place in this area is Fairfax Stone State Park, a surveyor’s marker and boundary stone used in the 1700s to settle a dispute over land, it marks the boundary between Maryland and West Virginia and it is the origin of the North Branch of the Potomac River.

Windmills lining the ridge U.S. Route 219 follows through the Potomac Highlands

About 6 miles down the road we arrived in Thomas. The Gal-ivanter has a great blog post on what to see and do on a perfect trip to Thomas. Thomas is jam packed with cute little shops and cafes. My favorites are the Bloom gallery and Thomasyard. We were hoping to find a geocache on part of the Blackwater Canyon Trail, but the snow had other plans.

Onward to Davis! Like Thomas, Davis has an adorable downtown area filled with cute shops and cafes, though I am devastated that Hellbender Burritos closed, so many folks will never know some of the best burritos I’ve ever eaten (and I know a thing or two about good burritos after living in California). After our experience trying to find the geocache on the trail in Thomas, we should have known better. However, we were enticed to the Heart of the Highlands Trail, which was also too snowy for searching. No problem, I would love an excuse to come back, even better if I can come back with my bike!

Our next stop was Mt. Storm Lake. This lake is interesting because the water tends to stay warmer than it would naturally because it cools a power plant. It is enormously popular for scuba diving, though you would not know that on a gusty December 24. On the bright side, we found the geocache and the cleanest portajohn I have ever seen.

The Tacocat is prepared for anything, including a very slushy lakeshore

At this point, my shoes were completely soaked through. It was quite wet and slushy and I cursed at myself for skipping the rubber boots, but the truck was warm and we only had one more planned stop. We headed to the intersection of U.S. Route 50 and Table Rock Rd in Garrett County, Maryland. Maryland has one of the most comprehensive networks of traffic cameras in the country, including one at this remote outpost (to explore more of Maryland’s traffic cameras and other metrics, check out CHART).

Being Christmas Eve, and feeling a little bummed about not being able to see either of our families, Chris sent the link to the cam to his mom and I did the same with my dad. My dad captured the following picture from the video feed:

It was as close as we could get to our loved ones. Facetime might be easier, but this was a lot more fun and capped off our adventure on a high note. Avoiding others can be difficult, but there are ways to make it a lot more fun.

Confusion over Historical Context

Having grown up in the Pacific Northwest where “old” often means anything built before 1950, I often find the human geography of West Virginia and near parts of neighboring states so fascinating. That people actually lived out here in established communities before a settlement in what is now Vancouver, British Columbia was a clearing in the woods is sort of incomprehensible to me. While that history is meaningful, odds are not as great that you’ll be off in the woods and discover foundations of an old community or some old industrial facility.

I remember when I was growing up in Surrey, BC I was so fascinated by the Anniedale School, the oldest school building in that district, and it was a one-room schoolhouse built in 1891 and serviced students in that capacity until 1954. Then there was the perennial field trip favorite, the Stewart Farm, which is a period piece demonstrating farming in the period from about 1890 to 1920.

In contrast, my home in West Virginia was built in the 1920s and it is not the oldest home in the neighborhood. The college I attended in Pittsburgh was established in 1869 and, while it was the first women’s college in Pennsylvania, the University of Pittsburgh only a few blocks away is 80+ years older. My husband’s family owns a “farm” outside of Huntington, WV and each spring the flowers planted numerous generations before sprout from the ground, illustrating where the home sites along the small creek must’ve been 150 years ago. “Old” and “time” have such different meaning in the ancient Appalachians.

To be fair, this adds an element of surprise on each carefully designed scenic drive, whether it is negotiating infrastructure based on ideas 100 to 200 years old, discovering a remnant of the past life of a location, or just patronizing the evolved versions of places that predate the community I grew up in substantially.

On this rainy, miserable, otherwise no-good day we decided to check in with some of our favorite local establishments and maybe pick up some antiques. That’s the other thing, in places so old and remote, antique stores are ubiquitous. There is a lot of old stuff to be had as the population has migrated in new directions.

We made our way down to U.S. Route 50, the Northwestern Turnpike, to head to Red House, Maryland. In Red House the old school is one of the only remaining structures. This brick structure, built in 1932, now houses an “antique” store. Quotation marks are used because not only does it feature antiques, but also more recent stuff that just doesn’t fit into any other category. Sometimes it is referred to as a “country mall,” which is a term I find more fitting. The school where the antique mall current exists is not the first in Red House, the original is about 40 years older and sits across U.S. Route 50 from the more recent school. The hamlet itself has been a place for travelers on the Northwestern Turnpike and Seneca Trail to dine and rest for a very, very long time, sitting at the crossroads. Many who headed west walked or rode through this very place, long before it was paved. The Northwestern Turnpike dates back to the late 1700s. The Seneca Trail has been a footpath for as long as humans have occupied the land, as Native Americans seem to have been using the trail for centuries.

Present day Red House School

Traveling north on the Seneca Trail brings you through Oakland, a historic railroad community, and past Deep Creek Lake, which is a resort area developed in the vicinity of the lake, which was created in the 1920s by the construction of a hydroelectric dam on a tributary of the Youghiogheny River (a river George Washington had some strong opinions about from a surveyor’s perspective). Some of the areas about the lake date back to that early development as the area was accessible by rail, though I am quite partial to the far newer Ledo Pizza. Ledo Pizza is a staunchly Maryland thing, the dough on their pizza sort of reminds me of flaky filo dough and it is an utter delight for your mouth.

North of Deep Creek, I-68 is the major route connecting Morgantown, WV and Cumberland, MD with civilization to the east, namely to Baltimore and Washington, DC. In extreme western Maryland and West Virginia it enables quick passage over an area where each person and animal had the rugged experience of establishing the best way through or over the mountains. The best route ended up having the new road constructed on top of it. That is what we call progress and while I can be as nostalgic as I want about it, I’m pretty grateful for I-68.

We hopped off of the highway in Bruceton Mills, a small community in Preston County, West Virginia. The Big Sandy Creek is the eastern boundary of the town and well over 100 years ago it was dammed as part of a mill structure that is long, long gone. Did I mention how incredible it is to me that some places had been developed and then have been declining since my native Vancouver was merely a clearing in the woods? Completely mind-blowing for history nerds from out west. With the miserable rain, the water was up on the creek so we stuck with our original plan of visiting their antique mall.

Despite an abundance of fascinating antiques, our haul consisted of a brick that had been manufactured in Morgantown. At one point Morgantown’s waterfront was dotted with tens of refractories and glass factories. Only one still prominently stands and it has largely become an incubator of small, artistic, cottage businesses. That’s perfectly fine, they have the most amazing tea shop at the Seneca Center.

Having taken the time to engage with the unique regional history, it was time to get back on the modern I-68 and enjoy the amenities of the modern day.

Local Successes: Preston County Buckwheat Festival

Perhaps the most exciting sign of fall for the denizens of the Morgantown area is the Preston County Buckwheat Festival. Besides, Monongalia County (where Morgantown is) doesn’t really do a great job with the whole county fair thing, so this is like the best shot for something as good or better. And though you can find buckwheat cake mix year round in the local supermarkets, there really is something quintessentially fall about the sweet and sour flavor.

There are a few ways to get to Kingwood from Morgantown, most take about a half hour (I-68 to WV-26, WV-7, and Kingwood Pike). On this day, we took Kingwood Pike, favoring the rolling hillsides and pastoral farms coupled with the lack of heavy truck traffic.

Parking could be a disaster, but they handle it well, using a large parking lot on the periphery of downtown and offering continuous free shuttle service on the Buckwheat Express (the local transit agency) from the lot to the center of downtown, which is also the center of festival activities.

The first stop is the Kingwood Volunteer Fire Department Hall, this is the place to gorge on cakes. Many other places around town also sell buckwheat cakes and I’m sure they’re delicious too, but you can’t go wrong here. At the KVFD hall, you pay at the window, walk in, they direct you to a kitchen area, and you can get your first serving of cakes and sausage. The sausage and milk are finite, but the coffee and cakes are not. With true Appalachian hospitality, you can eat until you’re ready explode. We did. Thinking about it, six weeks later, still makes me feel stuffed!

Once you’re so full it hurts to move, you’ve got to move on to the crafts and exhibits. Like a county fair, local children are showing and selling the animals they’ve raised. Chris and I are partial to the goats.

We love a lot of the vendors at these events. Forget about Bath Fitter and that stuff, I love the local businesses. This year, we discovered Mountain State Honey, a honey company based out of Parsons, WV. At the urging of our friends Kelly and Cody, who we ran into unexpectedly while perusing the craft and vendor area, we loaded up on all kinds of tasty of honey. It is true, there are at least two things you should spend the money on: honey and maple syrup.

After taking in a bit of the parade, we picked up the shuttle and headed back to the car. While the parking lot was deserted when we first got to the festival, when the shuttled pulled in on our way out, the line of people waiting to go to the festival was immense. It is so awesome to see such a successful local event!

We decided it would be lovely to go for a hike up at Coopers Rock to top off the wonderful day. We headed out WV-7 to Masontown, where we took Rohr Rd/Snake Hill Rd to Tyrone Rd and eventually got on to I-68 to get to Coopers Rock. Then the strangest thing happened: for the first time ever, we could find absolutely no place to park our car. Not a single picnic area or trailhead had a parking place. When we started noticing the trend, I started counting license plates, almost three-quarters were from out of state. I hope each one spent lots of money in Morgantown!

Somehow, we managed to work off the energy because eventually we made it to Chaang Thai for dinner. The weather was perfect so we enjoyed what would probably be our last meal on a patio in Morgantown for the year.

Seeking the Civil War in the Potomac Highlands

Returning to the Morgantown area from our geocaching blitz on the Eastern Panhandle, we wanted to take the scenic route and maximize the number of WV Civil War Trail caches we picked up, so we devised a route that would enable us to pick up seven of the geocaches. The route is pictured below:

WV Civil War Trail Zone 3 – Wardensville VC (287-327 W Virginia 259): this cache is located at the local historical society. Wardensville, today, is a picturesque small town that is reminiscent of Mayberry (though strongly reminds me of my mother’s hometown of Merritt, British Columbia). Wardensville, in addition to its role in the civil war (there is a marker at this location), was also the population center of the United States in 1820, the first of four times it would be in what would become West Virginia.

WV Civil War Trail Zone 3 – Olivet Cemetery (Olivet Dr): It is not uncommon in West Virginia to discover links to the Civil War in cemeteries and indeed in this series many cemeteries are visited. In this case, overlooking part of Moorefield, this cemetery is the final resting place of many of those who fought but is also saw action. It was so difficult to imagine, standing on a silent, Sunday morning young men firing on each other in what is a place intended to be peaceful. Moorefield is also home to a new Sheetz which came in handy at this point.

WV Civil War Trail Zone 3 – Taggart Hall (91 S High Street): The first stage of this cache is at a local museum and the second just a short drive away, requiring the dime tour of Romney. The continued existence of the West Virginia School for the Deaf and Blind in Romney is currently threatened, its campus is breathtaking and its history is inspiring.

WV Civil War Trail Zone 3 – Ft. Mill Ridge (Unnamed Rd): This fort was built to control the Northwestern Turnpike, modern day U.S. Route 50, and is well-preserved in part of a wildlife management area. The interpretive markers also hold nothing back in describing how challenging the winter of 1863 was, one of the coldest on record. Even on a warm day, this ridge is breezy, imagining freezing temperatures in May seems unimaginably miserable. I can’t help but wonder what was on the minds of the troops up here at that time.

WV Civil War Trail Zone 3 – Larenim Park (Patterson Creek Rd): Frankly, I couldn’t figure out the significance of this site in the Civil War. The location seemed a little strange. We had to drive back into a park that had a small reservoir, walk across the dam, and then do a little bit of bushwhacking.

WV Civil War Trail Zone 3 – Claysville UMC (U.S. 50): The little spec of a church here stood and held services for both Union and Confederate soldiers and different parts of war. While the differences between the two sides are so often focused on, here is one similarity that has been preserved.

WV Civil War Trail Zone 2 – Battle of Rowlesburg (656 Cannon Hill Rd): Having never been to Rowlesburg previously, this was a treat. We never realized how significant the railroad or the river was and is in Rowlesburg. Indeed, control over the railroad is what drew attention to Rowlesburg from both sides in the war. The tracks still run through town, and there are some old bridges and infrastructure that certainly ignited a spark in Chris’s railfan heart.

From here, we carried on to Morgantown. Due to our efforts this day, we had found enough Zone 3 caches to be eligible for the coin and were only two caches away from being eligible for the Zone 2 cache. Thus really only leaving Zone 1 needing sizable work to conquer.

Lessons from Grad School: Work Doesn’t Evaporate

Part 1

Sometimes I believe grad school has taught me more about things having nothing to do with transportation than those related to transportation. Some of these lessons, however, have significantly shaped how I look at very common aspects of my life. My primary task as a grad student is to perform research, this is my job. But no matter how fast I work or how many hours I work, there will always be more research and related tasks to accomplish.

It is fundamental that I dedicate substantial quantities of my time and effort to research, coursework, writing, and preparing for life after graduate school. But there will never be a time I am without work to do. That said, I have begun to learn how to effectively take time to step back from work and even find ways to release the stress that it causes. Believe it or not, sometimes it is very challenging to study death every day, especially when the majority of the death and injury you’re studying is from people who did nothing other than try and live their lives normally.

Weekends are not time for passive languishing. Weekends are time to fight back. Weekends are when the light comes shining in.

7:30am comes perfectly as the sun is at the right angle to catch all of the shades of green in Sylvester’s eyes. He’s hungry, he wants some attention, and he doesn’t want me to waste the day. He purrs until I get out bed and is underfoot until his food dish is piled high, giving me the opportunity to throw on a t-shirt and yoga pants and sneak out the door with Chris.

Deep Creek Lake is about an hour away from Morgantown, West Virginia near Oakland, Maryland. It is a gorgeous lake that is a popular summer vacation spot for folks in the region. The lake is created by a dam and has long, narrow coves splintering off of the very busy main channel. After a few weekends getting reacquainted with kayaking and teaching Chris the basics, we’re ready for a bigger lake (no horsepower limit here!). We rented kayaks from High Mountain Sports and with their recommendations on nice places to paddle, we’re off.

Despite it still being early, not even 10am, the lake is alive with traffic. Pontoon boats, speedboats, jetskis, and even a few other kayaks are everywhere, along with a pretty stiff breeze. Step one is crossing the main channel of the lake in one piece. The first few minutes were a challenge, but once we mastered the movement of the water, the waves were like a carnival ride. As I paddled fiercely, not wanting to dilly-dally in the middle of the busy lake the stress was evaporating. I left it in the main channel of the lake. We paddled up Cherry Creek Cove, getting unique views of lovely vacation homes and the wonderful flora of western Maryland.

The wind seemed to pick up as we approached the main channel heading back to the marina. But it was time to head back, we powered across the lake. It seemed to take forever as the wind and the wake were beating us up. In this situation, I couldn’t think about issues I’m having with my data or the specifications of my regression models, rather I had to focus on my kayak and me. Every time a large boat would pass I’d spin the kayak to take the wake head on and lift my arms in the air to keep the paddle from catching the water. It was a blast.

But this mental vacation day is hardly over. Next time: great food and great finds in Maryland and West Virginia!

Into the Beehive

West Virginia only has sixteen National Historic Landmarks (not to be confused with listings on the National Register of Historic Places). One of these landmarks is the Elkins Coal and Coke Company Historic District, locally referred to as the Bretz Beehive Ovens. The beehive style ovens were thought to be the very last when they ceased operation in 1980. Now they sit silently across from a quiet stretch of the Decker’s Creek Rail Trail near Masontown, West Virginia.

Masontown, despite its proximity to Morgantown, is a fairly isolated community. From Morgantown it is a curvy, windy trip on WV Route 7, wedged between either a cliff or the hillside and Decker’s Creek. From the road, the Decker’s Creek Rail Trail follows the opposite side of the creek. Masontown is appropriately named because just before arriving in town one passes the Greer Limestone Quarry.

The Masontown trailhead for the Decker’s Creek Rail Trail is a few blocks shy of downtown. Unlike a number of the other trailheads, this one is a broad green space suitable for picnicking and sunbathing. As we began to make our way toward the ovens and a geocache we passed a bicyclist and saw all sorts of evidence of life.

What I probably love most about rail trails in particular is the chance, if you look carefully, to see modern ruins. Looking up hillsides and under modern bridges, you’ll find hints of the past. But all trails connect users with the natural world. This is a good thing, and I’ll even be the first to admit a severe smartphone addiction.

An old concrete booth from the trail's past life

Despite it being early March, we never escaped the sounds of other humans. We heard the gears of bicycles whirring, four-wheelers snarling, and tractors popping. It was even comforting as we navigated through the wonders of the environment. But it probably did keep the other animals away. I’m not sure how much of a problem I have with that, this is black bear country.

The beehives were both grand and diminutive. When we arrived they seemed to line the hillside as far as the eye could see, there were 140 of them. But the ovens, or what’s left of them, were squat and covered in weeds. From the trail alone it is impossible to fully grasp the significance. Indeed, it would be an asset to the trail to have a kiosk to offer visits an introduction to their significance.

The remains of the beehive ovens

By the view of the ovens is a collapsing wooden railroad trestle that carried trains off the mainline (now the trail) to collect the coke from the ovens. The temptation is great to cross the creek to get a closer look, but safety must always come first and private property must always be respected. We settled on photographs and hope to access the ovens legally someday.

The old rail access to the ovens

The trip back to the car was a flash, but for our effort, we were hungry and thirsty, so we went into Masontown to satisfy our needs. A few sodas and sandwiches don’t contribute much to the local economy, but if you multiply this number by all or even half of that trailhead’s guests, the trail is paid for.

And in three days, this blog will celebrate a year of sharing stories from the roads, rails, and the land under my feet. Thank you for reading!