Trout Run Road

Remember the lovely ALCs I posted about? Well, Saturday with temperatures in the 60s and LOTS of wind, I actually strapped those bad boys on and went riding. And you know what? They were awesome. Comfortable AND warm. I was very glad to have them.

Water treatment system.

While Hubby was busy installing our new water treatment system on Saturday, I went for a little ride. I did 113.5 miles total, which isn’t a lot, really. But I was gone for about 4 hours.

Why so long? Because I had my camera with me, silly!

So I was actually able to stop and take pictures of stuff like a pretty mountain lake, and a strange standalone silo, and a scared cow, and a country road, and…

Wait, wouldn’t it be more fun if I just showed you the pictures?

Remember, I was by myself and I didn’t take a tripod. It was windy, too. Far too windy to just sit my camera on a rock or something for a self-portrait. So no new shots of me looking bad-ass in my ALCs, but I did get some nice scenery pictures.

There’s this one country road I’ve been wanting to check out for a while. It’s impossible to tell on any of the maps whether it is gravel or not, so we hadn’t included it in any trips. But I’ve been wondering. So Saturday I headed for Wardensville, West Virginia and Trout Run Road.

Turns out, it was a great motorcycle road. Now if only it hadn’t been windy, I wouldn’t have had to worry about finding downed tree limbs around every blind curve. I never did encounter any really big limbs, and I got some nice pics, if I do say so myself.

Trout Run Road at CR-16.

If you followed the Trout Run Road map link, you’ll have seen that it runs through part of the George Washington National Forest. When I stumbled upon the Trout Run Campground, I just had to check it out. Why? Where there’s a campground, there are usually toilets. And a girl in the middle of the woods is ALWAYS happy to see one of those.

A campground I stumbled upon.

It was actually a cute campground. There’s a lake (pictured below), as well as a pond, which I never actually saw.

Rockcliff Lake at Trout Pond Campground
Nature trail near the lake.

I was only at the campground briefly, but it really did seem like a nice spot. There’s a picnic area, playground and swimming beach in addition to the hiking trails, camping and fishing.

I'm guessing there was a barn attached to this silo at some point, but it's LONG gone.
A cool old barn alongside the road. I think this was along WV-29 between Hanging Rock and Rio.
Looking west at the WV-29 OLD 55/259 split between Baker and Rio.
Scared cow. It really freaks them out when you actually stop, dismount and walk toward them. Trust me, I know. I've done that quite a few times. I like cows.
Just another old barn along the road.

As you can see from the pictures, it was a pretty blue-sky-and-white-puffy-cloud-day. The wind made riding a bit uncomfortable, mainly because of all the pollen, dust, grass clippings, bugs, etc. blowing through the air and, in some cases, up my nose and/or in my eyes. But it was still a nice. day.

The Great Bike Hike

Amy asked if Hubby and I would keep the grandkids this weekend. We almost said no because there was a homeowners’ association meeting scheduled for the WV place that we needed to go to. We both knew there was NO WAY Gaige (6) and Joey (2.5) could sit through that.

After some thought, we decided I could come to WV and attend the HOA meeting with Brianna while Hubby stayed home in MD with Gaige and Joey. Oh yeah, and Klondike (who is quite a bit larger than our dogs).

Before the meeting, we went to McDonald’s for breakfast. One thing you forget when you don’t have kids around daily is how SLOWLY they eat. (About 1/4 of Brianna’s  bacon, egg and cheese bagel went to the meeting with us.)

Asking a nine-year-old to sit quietly through an HOA meeting is asking a lot. Despite her having her iPOD (music and games), two chapter books and a word search puzzle book, I was really wondering if Brianna, a talking machine, would be able to make it through the meeting. She complained a little bit, but actually behaved amazingly well considering that most adults have a hard time staying awake, sitting still and keeping quiet during HOA meetings.

She was the only kid in attendance, of course, and the adults seemed tickled to have her there and chat with her. She told a couple of them we’d be going on a “Bike Hike” after the meeting. I corrected her several times explaining that we were going for a bike ride. I reminded her we would not be walking.

“Hiking is walking,” I said. “We’ll be riding our bikes. So quit calling it a bike hike.” (As an aside, she also told at least three people that her Aunt Shannon had had her ear bitten by a monkey.)

Not that long ago, Hubby and I biked a small segment of the C&O Canal between Oldtown, Maryland and Town Creek. I figured that after a 3-hour HOA meeting, Brianna would be ready to burn off some energy, so we brought her bike along. It really is a great place to ride.

Brianna Readying for the Bike Ride

Before we left for the canal, I showed her the piece of coal I’d found last time I was there. She was quite impressed. She asked if we could go find some coal for her. I told her it was a pretty far ride (just under 5 miles), but she was determined. She really liked my coal.

"Ribbit!"

It had rained for a couple of hours in the morning and was supposed to rain again in the afternoon, but we decided to give it a go anyway. So after taking the dogs for a long walk, we headed for Oldtown.

It wasn’t as sunny as the last time I was there. It was cooler, too. But we still saw lots of different critters.

“I’m not driving you crazy stopping to point out all of the animals, am I?” I asked her. “No!” she assured me. “I love critters, too.”

That frog was just the tip of the proverbial iceberg.

Turtles

Brianna likes critters just about as much as I do (which I honestly never thought possible). So she was thrilled to see the various little critters we saw. And we really did see quite a variety. I took my zoom lens this time, so I was able to get some better turtle pics. She, too, was amazed at how many turtles are there.

Turtles

About two miles into the ride, I realized we’d probably both have the energy to do the entire five miles. So I told her I thought we’d make it. She was thrilled. She really, really wanted some coal of her own. She kept saying stuff like, “I know that’s far, and we might be pretty tired. But if we say that’s our goal, and we just keep going no matter how tired we get, we’ll be able to make it.” I tell you, the girl is a talking machine. I found her little motivational speech to herself quite entertaining.

Brianna Loves Having Her Picture Taken
Virginia Bluebells

On the way to the canal, we’d discussed all of Brianna’s favorite colors. Teal is #1. Followed by light blue and dark blue. So she liked seeing the Virginia Bluebells that are still in bloom at various spots along the towpath.

Ugly Snapping Turtle

The more we rode, the more critters we saw. We were having a great time. We’d gone about 4 miles when Brianna said, “This road is starting to feel funny.” She kept pushing, though, and talking about the wonderful coal we were going to find.

A couple of minutes later, however, we realized her bike had gotten a flat tire.

Crap.

We only had a couple of options at that point. Keep walking to Town Creek, stash her bike in the bushes then ride two-up the 5 miles back to Oldtown. Or turn around and walk back to where we’d left the truck.

“But, my coal,” she said. “We can’t abandon my goal.”

That’s when I told her we’d walk back to the truck and then drive to Town Creek to find her coal. “And,” I said, “if we don’t find any coal, you can have my piece, because by then you will certainly have earned it.” The whole time, I’m thinking we’re screwed. I mean, 4 miles is a long way for anyone to walk, much less a nine-year-old who had already biked that far. But we really didn’t have any choice, so we set off.

She did complain some, mainly about not achieving her goal. But we kept pushing. We were walking at a decent clip, too, spurred on by the sky that was growing increasingly dark with every passing second.

Very Large Black Snake

The good thing about walking was that we could look more closely for critters without having to worry about driving into the canal, which is how I noticed this big-ass snake sunning itself in a tree.

Pileated Woodpecker Holes

And this neat tree full of woodpecker holes. (We even saw a Pileated Woodpecker not far from our cabin on the way home later.)

Brianna Resignedly Pushing Her Bike
Small Garter Snake
A Rest Break

This picture made me giggle every time I looked at it last night after we arrived back at the cabin. “You TOLD me to look sad!” she said every time I laughed. Which is true. I had. At the time, she’d asked me why. I told her we’d just trekked at least three miles, that it would be funny to make people think she was exhausted. That was MUCH easier than explaining that I wanted it for effect on my blog, which would only have spurred a gazillion questions like: what’s a blog? You have a blog? Why haven’t I ever seen your blog? Why do you need a blog? Are there other pictures of me there? Etc., etc., etc.

My Favorite Turtle Picture
My Second-Favorite Turtle Pic
One of the Three Muskrats We Saw (Brianna wants one of these for a pet)
STILL Walking and Pushing without Complaint
Back at the Truck

I took this picture of Brianna sitting on her bike just before we put the bikes into the truck. Does she look even slightly miserable/exhausted/hungry? She looks even happier in the next shot. Can you guess why? Just one, four-letter word is your answer…

Coal!

Just as I’d promised, we drove to the Town Creek Aqueduct to find Brianna some coal. And because I remember weird stuff like exactly where I’d found some coal weeks prior, we hit the mother lode. She walked away with EIGHT pieces of coal. She was beyond thrilled. Until she realized, after settling into the truck with her coal lined-up on her lap, that there was a smallish-but-menacing black spider walking across the largest chunk. She didn’t shriek hysterically like most little girls would have, but she wasn’t thrilled either.

I calmly grabbed that particular piece (I was wearing my grandmother hat, remember)  and tossed it out the window.

“No!” she said. “My coal!” (Who would’ve thought coal, COAL, would have inspired her so?)

“I just wanted to knock the spider off,” I told her after I’d retrieved her prize coal hunk. (Luckily we hadn’t started moving yet.)

It was at that point, by the way, that the rain started. At least our timing had worked out.

Since we hadn’t eaten lunch, we drove to Fort Ashby and had a pig-out dinner. Brianna had a cup of broccoli cheese soup, a salad, and chicken parmigiana with spaghetti. I had a cup of vegetable soup, meatloaf with french fries and cole slaw. She was quite tickled that the waitress was treating her like an adult. And an older couple at the next table were chit-chatting with us throughout the meal. They were amazed not only by what she was eating, but by how much. She finished it all (we both saved a few bites for the dogs), so we topped the meal off with some yummy strawberry shortcake.

While eating, she informed me that she wanted to move to West Virginia with me, “Because people here really seem to like kids.”

Care to guess what her first order of business was upon arriving back at the cabin? Washing her coal.

Brianna's Clean Coal

After I fed the dogs, we took them for a short walk. Then we made a critter list, which Brianna was also quite proud of.

Our Critter List

If you click on the picture, you should be able to read the list. After this picture was taken, we realized we’d forgotten to add the woodpecker.

Notice the coal reference?

Brianna insisted that she should take a picture of me, too. So here I am, looking lovely as usual.

ToadMama (with K, who missed me very much)

At the end of our day, I told Brianna that “bike hike” was a pretty accurate way to describe our day after all.

And when I tucked her into bed (at 11:00 after two LONG games of Skip-Bo), I told her how proud I was of her for being such a good sport all day.

I’m already looking forward to our next ride, after I buy a tire repair kit, that is.

http://toadmama.com/2010/04/biking-the-co-canal/

My Friend, the Chicken Lady

In 2008, my long-time girlfriend Tracey moved from a small house in Parkville, on the outskirts of Baltimore City in Maryland, to a much larger house on around 11 acres in York County, Pennsylvania. York County is farm country. At least it looks like farm country to me.

Shortly after the move, Tracey became a chicken lady. Today, I was finally able to visit. And, believe it or not, I took some pictures.

Guinea Hens

I’m a city girl for the most part. I know more about wild animals than farm animals. I thought chickens were essentially white or orange/brown and chicken-shaped. Sort of like this.

They’re not.

Guinea Hens Again

They are rather interesting-looking birds.

Bantam Rooster and a Dominiker (or something like that)

These two look more like regular chickens to me. The Dominiker, Jack Sprat (on the right), doesn’t have a full comb yet because he’s not quite a year old.

Daisy Donald Duck

I guess Tracey is technically a poultry lady, because she has ducks, too. This duck was originally named Daisy. Then someone noticed Daisy was a boy. I’m not sure who finally discovered the testicles under all of those feathers.

More Ducks

These other ducks, the brown ones are Waffles, Howard and Mystery Duck (Tracey forgot the other boy’s name).

Ducks Drinking

I am jealous of the ducks. Not of the ducks, of Tracey for getting to own ducks. How cool is that?

Mick Jagger the Cochin Bantam Rooster

Mick Jagger is probably the coolest. He’s got natural mukluks (boots). Tracey says, “His boots were made for walkin’.”

Follow the leader...
Cock a Doodle Do!
Mick Jagger Struttin' His Stuff
One of Three Partridge Rock Hens
This is either Gertie, Wilma or Betty.

Remind me to ask what’s on the menu before accepting any dinner invitations.

A Different Perspective

Our house in West Virginia is about 150 miles from our house in Maryland. Depending on traffic, if we stop to eat and how many potty stops we have to make for the dogs and me, it’s about a three-hour drive each way. Some people would call that crazy. We’re used to it. We do, however, like to switch up the routes every now and then. We do this primarily to avoid traffic, but we both enjoy the change of scenery.

One of the more-pleasant routes we use takes us through Shepherdstown, West Virginia and Boonsboro, Maryland.

Farm just outside of downtown Boonsboro, MD

Unfortunately, we’ve never actually stopped to explore either town because the girls are always with us. Both seem like pretty nice places. We also go through Sharpsburg, Keedysville and Middletown in Maryland. On the West Virginia side, there’s Kearneysville and Leetown.

Small towns are cool. They have character.You never know what you’ll see, like this lady and her dog randomly greeting passersby through their window.

"Hello, stranger!"

Okay, maybe the lady and her dog aren’t real. But I think they are awesome. They are painted on the back of Vesta Pizza in Boonsboro at the intersection of MD-34 and US-40.

This painting technique is known as trompe-l’oeil. That’s French and essentially means “trick the eye.”

Here’s another view of the same building from a slightly wider angle.

Rear of Vesta Pizza in Boonsboro, Maryland

I don’t know when the painting was done exactly, but it’s been within the last year. The Google Maps street view stills shows the unadorned building.

Hubby told me to make sure I got the cat laying in the sun at the back door, so here it is.

Sleepy Cat

The trompe-l’oeil (pronounced “tromp-lou-e”) technique has been around since the Renaissance. If I’d paid attention during History in high school, I could probably tell you when that was.

Google trompe-l’oeil and you’ll see a very wide and interesting variety of examples, such as:

I’m not sure if you can see this next one without being a Flickr member, but we’ll try. In this picture of St. Paul’s Cathedral, you can see the trompe-l’oeil facade employed during renovation.

Sorry, I didn’t set out to make this post an art diatribe. I just wanted to share a few nice Boonsboro pictures. But the more I looked, the more I learned and the more images I discovered, which of course I had to share.

Anyway… the next time you drive through Boonsboro, don’t forget to look at the back wall of the Vesta Pizza building.

Hold Love Strong

In June of 2009, I grabbed a book off the library shelf. It was the first effort by a new author and it looked interesting.

Oh. My. God.

“Interesting” does not do this book justice. Even now, nine months and many books/short stories later, I still say it is one of the best books I have ever read. That’s my opinion, anyway.

I wrote about Hold Love Strong not long after finishing its last page. I liked it so much, I bought a copy for myself specifically so I could pass it around to all of my reading friends.

Shannon, my oldest daughter, loved it and was moved by it like I was. Amy, my youngest daughter, liked it, but not as much as Shannon and I. My mother in law, if I remember correctly, tried reading it, but couldn’t get into it. I’m not sure if I gave my mom the chance to read the book, and Hubby hasn’t tried. (He forgot all about it while it was making its rounds.)

Now, please keep in mind, different people like to read different things. You know, different strokes for different folks and all that. Fiction books are wholly or in part from a writer’s imagination. Fiction, as explained in more detail here, is broken down into categories, the two biggest being commercial fiction and literary fiction. The easiest way to describe the difference, without sounding like an elitist, is that commercial fiction is usually popular for the story it tells whereas literary fiction is more about how a story is told. Not that the stories aren’t good, mind you, they’re just told differently.

Hold Love Strong is literary fiction. It’s both a great story and, in my opinion, it is told exceedingly well. Reviewers have used words like poignant, lyrical, evocative, haunting, gritty, honest. It’s all that and more. The Book Lady does a pretty good job describing the book here.

What impressed me most was how honestly the book was written, how well it pulled me in and showed me the realities of life in the projects. And not once did it employ Black English in a manner that would even slightly be considered patronizing, condescending or demeaning.

The non-use of Black English is only one of the reasons I found it so surprising that the author is young, white and male. That and the nonjudgmental nature of the book. I just HAD to learn more about the man behind this work that I think every white person in America should be made to read.

Shannon was surprised when I told her not only had I e-mailed the author, but that he’d responded to me like the next day.

Hey, Shan, guess what? He e-mailed me again!

Oddly enough, mere hours before receiving that e-mail, the book had popped into my consciousness. I’ve often wondered how it had done. That’s why I got an e-mail, which, in all fairness, was addressed as follows: “Dear Everyone I know (and folks whose email somehow ended up in my contact list).

I obviously fall into the latter bunch. But still.

How many of you got an e-mail yesterday from your favorite, up-and-coming author?

The reason for the e-mail was to announce the March 16th paperback release of the book.

I know nothing about publishing. I have no idea why this book was not the most talked about book of 2009. I’m clueless as to why Oprah hasn’t made this one of “her” books.

Maybe it’ll be more popular in paperback. After all, hardbacks are pretty expensive. Lots of other books do well in hardback, but they’re usually by established authors.

If you like literary fiction even a little bit, buy this book.

If you know someone else who likes to read literary fiction even a little bit, buy this book.

Seriously, I think all literary fiction fans will agree, this is a book that deserves to be on the bestseller list.

Maybe I’m off my rocker (doubt it!). Maybe this book really is just not that good (it’s fabulous!).

If you have read it, PLEASE let me know what you think.

NOTE: The pictures you see here have absolutely nothing to do with the content of the post. I just find blogs without pics boring. Hopefully, the images were not too distracting…

Why’d You Take a Picture of That?

Every now and then Quite frequently, Hubby will come across a picture I have taken and say, “Why’d you take a picture of that?”

He’s an engineer. Things I do rarely make sense to him.

He has a screen saver that cycles through all of the pictures on our network. So I hear questions often…

  • “Who are these people?”
  • “What dog is that?”
  • “Do you really need to keep ten different versions of the same picture?”

I can’t explain what motivates me, really. Because it’s different things. Sometimes it’s color, like with this ham and cabbage casserole I was cooking one night.

Ham and Cabbage Casserole

Once the cabbage cooks for awhile, it loses most of the green coloring. But for a while there, it was a striking casserole.

Dramatic sky colors really catch my eye. Not just the sunrise and sunset shots, either. I also think the sky looks interesting before and after storms.

After the Storm

Don’t get me wrong, I like sunsets, too. A lot. Not just seeing the sun dip below the horizon, but watching as the sky turns a lot of different colors over a very brief period of time.

Most of you have seen the following picture, but I am not sure if I ever shared the story behind it. I was actually standing on the sidewalk in front of our house taking pictures of the sky one afternoon. When I turned around, I saw the girls sitting there looking all cute with this awesome reflection of the sunset visible on the glass.

Go Ahead, Knock. I Triple Dog Dare You.

That will always be one of my absolute favorite doggie pics.

Speaking of dogs, they catch my eye a lot, too. Not because of their coloring, but just because they make me smile. The faces Belle makes, as captured in many of my images, really tickle me. It’s doubly impressive when I get an action shot AND a goofy face at the same time.

Obsessed with Speed

Each of our dogs has different little quirks that are unique to the individual. One of K’s quirks is the way she sits on the steps. Her butt and back feet are usually on one step and her front feet are on a lower step. When Belle and Meg are ready to come in from outside, Belle looks in through the door and Meg looks for a bit, but also scratches. K just sits on the step with her back to the door. The image you see below is a common sight.

Ready to Come Inside

Speaking of Meg, I just love her face. She has one of the most expressive doggy faces ever.

Meg in My Face

I took this close-up one evening when she was sitting on my lap.

I do admit, though, that Meg’s unique coloring has inspired quite a few photos.

There’s that color thing again. I just like colors.

Blue Moon with Craquelure Effect

Colors are fun to look at AND colorful pics make for some great experiments with photo processing software.

Soon, nature will be a riot of color. I can’t wait.