New River Gorge National Park

26 May 2013--Here at the park, 2 bird types we keep seeing quite frequently.  The one on the right is called an Eastern Bluebird, don't know about the one on the left....just thought they were very pretty.

 

On Friday we decided to take a ride on West Virginia's version of the "scenic route", called the Midland Trail.  Route 60 actually goes for about 170 miles, with Charleston being at about the 50 mile marker, and we drove southeast down to the New River Gorge National Park about 60+ miles away.



As I said in the last posting, this state is seriously wooded, but does have a few pretty spots we saw yesterday on the ride.  This is the Kanawha River, which seems to run the width of the state...the same river that was outside the state capitol and went past where we stopped yesterday.  Next we have some waterfalls, 12 of which dot the area in a 5 mile span of driving.

  
 

Next I thought I would show you some of the "not so pretty" stuff that you view along this route.  Being "coal country", almost everywhere you drive you see these coal plants on the side of the road, including along the "scenic route".



And then you pass thru town after small town, where there are some nice houses, but a whole bunch of houses that look like these.  And you can't miss these...they are literally right along the side of the road, so close you feel like you can reach out and touch them.  It is actually quite jarring...some of them are clearly lived in, while some others leave you hoping no one is calling them "home".  Blow up the last one and you can see that the vegetation seems to be overtaking it from every angle.

  
 

A few interesting sites along the way.  In this 1st picture, if you click on it and blow it up you can see across the river a large rock with this building on it, and to the right of that you can see a couple crosses.  1st the story behind the building.  We were told by a guy who owned one of the roadside attractions that the guy that owned this just died about 6 months ago, and if you look closely at it you can tell that on the other side of the "porch" is a bus.  The guy who owned it used to run gambling out of the bus, and the rock is actually a very small island.  So if the "water cops" came, everyone could see them coming and then all the guys could get in the boats and get away.  You can see a refrigerator out on the porch too...I guess for the cold drinks!  haha

 

If you blow up the 1st pic here you will read a question and answer directed at these crosses.  You see these crosses, always in 3s, along the roads and hills throughout the state, and this says something about a formerly rich man who had a vision while having heart surgery that told him to build them...and he did all over this state and I think it says 28 others!!!

 

Once again, this whole "scenic" thing here cracks me up.  We are driving along and see this sign, so we do exactly what it wants us to do...we pull over into the pullout to see the sights.  When I get out all I can see is trees...not in the distance, but blocking my view of absolutely everything along the tree line.  Check out the short video also.  I don't know what they are thinking!!!???

 


The guy who owns this "Mystery Hole" attraction is the one who told us about the gambling bus.  They have something inside that is supposed to make you lose your sense of gravity, but they wouldn't let us take any pictures so we didn't go in.  (That'll teach 'em!--haha)  I did like the "redneck taxi" out front though.

 

Another roadside attraction?  haha  How funny does this look?  No hint of a sidewalk, your yard goes right up to the main road.



There is a lot of hiking, fishing and whitewater rafting in the New River Gorge nowadays, but years ago it was a serious coal mining area.



It is almost hard to believe what it looks like now as opposed to what it looked like years ago.  Look at the "now and then" pictures.

  
 

There are still coal trains that go through this park every day....quite a few of them based on how many we saw while we were there.  In these pics you can see the rails on both the right and left sides of the river.

  

And here you can see an actual coal train going through on the far side.



The New River Bridge is the longest single-span arch bridge in the world and a big attraction here.

  


Even though I can see a net beneath these guys as they were building it, there is absolutely no amount of money you could pay me to walk up there like they are!!!

 

You can't see much of the bridge from the very top of the gorge, so they built these steps down 200 ft for a better view, just in case you didn't want to go to the very bottom I guess.  There are 179 steps down...and back up, of course!  haha

  

But to get the best view you really have to go all the way to the bottom, almost 900 ft below, to the Fayette Station Bridge you can see in this 1st pic.  Cathy and I drove down there, and made it just in the nick of time (see video).

 


Behind us in the water you can see some people in rafts headed towards the whitewater ahead, so Cathy and I drove to the other side to get a good view of them.



We had to hike a short span through the woods, but it was worth it.

  
  

Check out the person in the front of the boat in the 1st pic...her legs are flying!!!

  

And no more than the guys up working on the bridge, you couldn't pay me to do this!!!  Donna and Hallie, would you???

  

Quotes from guys who used to work in the mines in the old days.  Not surprising that West Virginia is known as an overall poor state.  Pretty sad when you think how hard those guys worked.



So that's about all we are going to see in West Virginia.  There is a lot to see here, but almost everything is really far away...like they list tours of the former "West Virginia Lunatic Asylum"...now I would pay money to see that, but it is about 110 miles from where we are, so it will have to go on a "things to do another time" list.  I just want to be able to name a blog with that name....funny, huh?  Not exactly "politically correct"!

Tuesday we are heading out to Kentucky, so we'll be back once we get there.  Talk to you soon!

Blenko Glass Factory

23 May 2013--Got a late start today so all we did was drive to a town called Milton, about 45 miles from here, to see the Blenko Glass Factory.  It was mentioned in the "things to do in West Virginia" listings and we got a brochure from the Welcome Center on it, so we decided that we would tour it today seeing as the weather was bad and it would be best if we were inside seeing something.

This is a real blown glass factory, but they allow self-guided tours 4 days a week where you can watch the guys making the glass objects.  The 2nd and 3rd pics here show the factory floor pretty much as you view it, from a rail about 10-15 ft from the closest worker.  I think there were 4 stations up front, with 3 sets of guys working on different items, all from separate ovens.

  

Now this isn't exactly like seeing the Grand Canyon, so I thought I would lay it out showing you how the glass is made.  I figured, once again, that maybe Kaleigh or Emily might have a class project they have to do in the future where they could use this info for presentation to their classmates...All the work will already be done for them (haha).

So this redneck with his back to you (haha) is the gatherer, the one who takes still liquified glass out of the oven and brings it to the blower.

  

The blower then forms it in a hand-held round or oval cup-like thing to make sure it is all smooth, and then takes it over to another guy who squeezes the glass into a template while the blower blows air into the glass, making it expand and reform in the mold.

  
 

The blower takes it back to put the final touches on on it before the stick-up boy comes along.

 

Here are 2 videos to the process for the above piece in action.  These 3 guys repeat this exact same process until they have made enough of this one item to fill an order from a commercial customer.



Here is a 2nd set of guys making a bowl.  I cut to the chase and just gave you one pic and one video.  haha



Like I said, this isn't exactly a Grand Canyon blog, but it was sort of interesting.  When we were leaving there were a few guys working outside so we stopped to ask a few questions.  This is what I found out:

--This factory used to employ about 150 people, but is now down to about 45.

--There are 18 glass blowers, with everyone else working in support of them, like in the shipping department.

--While women work here, all the glass blowers are men.  The guy I was talking to didn't know why, but said he wasn't sure if there was ever a woman who applied to be a glass blower.

--Some of the glass blowers had been there for more than 30 years, and most had started very young without knowing anything about glass blowing at all.

--The glass shards below are about a year's worth of waste.  They break it down into color groups because they sell it to concrete companies that make other things with it, like certain tables.

--Most of the colors in the in the glass came from mixing the glass with chemicals, but the topaz colored glass in the 1st pic on the left side is made from mixing glass with Domino sugar!!!  (Who knew?)



Of course they have a store here if you want to buy any of their products, and also displays of stained glass windows made with their glass.  Here are some of them that I thought were really pretty..

  
 

I have always been very attracted to colored glass for some reason...must be something in my childhood.  haha

 

Finally, we decided that instead of taking the highway home we would instead take the "scenic route" outlined on the area map we have.  The 1st 2 pics here are of the scenic route, followed by pic 3 that is of the highway.  Other than the number of lanes, do you see any difference?  West Virginia, no matter where you look or drive, seems to be the greenest and most forested state we have been in.

  

Going the scenic route did allow us to stop at the occasional small town like this one, St Albans, along the Kanawha river that is outside the state Capitol building.

  


So that was our afternoon.  Will have to try harder tomorrow to find something really good.  haha