To the OBX Part 3

To the OBX      Part 3

By John W. Vander Velden

 

It had been a rainy overnight our stay in West Virginia.
The heavy rains spilled down the mountains all
along the route. But there were a few grander waterfalls.

The day broke cool and gray the next morning as we loaded up Pearl, our Jeep  and left the OBX behind. We could have spent more time there. Perhaps next time we will take the ferry to Ocracoke Island, but we enjoyed our few days and had yet another adventure to see on this trip. We left the OBX by a different route than our arrival. Going across Roanoke and driving west across nearly four hundred miles of North Carolina before twisting north in to West Virginia. We allowed Google to be our guide and abandoned the Interstate near Beckley and drove nearly twenty miles of mountain highway on a misty evening. Turns on the narrow way with sheer rock cliffs on one side and almost NOTHING on the other. Low shoulder took a new meaning that evening. At one point the road narrowed to one lane because the other had washed away. Falling rocks took a different significance when you drive beneath stony overhangs. And the smell of coal hung in the air everywhere.

The clouds hung low upon the mountains giving them a surreal appearance.
We took a few minutes to stop at Kanawha River Falls.
 

Jackie was concerned that our little computer friend was leading us far astray as we pushed on mile after mile, through small mountain towns, past coal processing plants, through wood and along river, along overhanging rock walls, and on cliff edges. At last the sight of a Dollar General and a BP station reminded us that we had not abandoned civilization entirely. Highway 3 came at last to a four lane and our confidence in “Alexa” grew.

You drive along back highways and come across some interesting things.
We stumbled upon yet another waterfall.
This one was marked so we could know it was Cathedral Falls.
Though it was a misty day, several people stopped to see this wonderful sight.

The hotel in Chapmanville, WV was very nice, and the jump off place for our last outing of this trip. In 2008 we had come to West Virginia and we used that trip to see Glade Creek Grist Mill. It was there I hoped to return. Much to Jackie’s chagrin the route from the hotel to Babcock State Park demanded forty miles of the same kind of road that we had traveled the night before. Twenty on the same Highway 3 we had white knuckled before. But daylight helped immensely and the three hours the journey took were not unpleasant. The night’s rain had caused hundreds of small waterfalls, rivulets spilling down the rock face at the roads edge, but also fed two large water falls we stopped to photograph. We stumbled upon them in passing and went till we found a place to turnaround to return.  The first one unnamed, or in the least its name was not posted,

the larger, Cathedral Falls, had a substantial parking area and drew several people.

 

 

Onward we reached Babcock State Park and drove directly to the mill. I am told it is the most photographed mill in North America. Seeing it again I could understand why. We spent a few hours wandering the grounds and braving the rain while I shot my photos. Leaving for we had “many miles to go before we had our sleep” we made a quick stop at a bridge nearby. The New River Gorge Bridge is an engineering wonder. Our last hotel was too far for us to spend a proper amount of time there. On our last visit we had a lengthy visit even driving down the gorge across the rickety wood bridge and under the great steel structure 800 feet overhead. But on this quick stop it was rush down hundreds of steps to the viewing platform take some picts and back up to the parking lot to hurry off.

The reason we drove more than two hours on back country highways.
Glade Creek Grist Mill, Babcock State Park, WV.
Our second visit to what is described as the most photographed mill in the US.

All that remained was the drive home. The sun was setting when we reached the last hotel on this trip. I worked on photos and Jackie watched “When Calls the Heart” we don’t get the Hallmark Channel at home. The next day would take us home safe and sound, not really rested, that wasn’t the point, but our head filled with the

Yes, I was there!

memories of another adventure, as we surveyed lawns in desperate need of shortening. Where will we go next? You know we haven’t decided...yet.

 

 



 

Though we had miles to go and the day was becoming quickly spent, we made an unplanned stop.
Here I walked the pathway to the many steps that led down to the viewing platform.
I counted 156 steps...not so many, but hurrying they were sufficient to set my heart a racing.


 

 

 

The New River Gorge Bridge is an Engineering marvel.
The four lane roadway is more than 800 feet above the river.

 

 

But the bridge is not the only wonder you will see from that platform.
Turning you can look down the gorge itself.
Even on a misty afternoon the view is amazing.
(This picture does not do it justice)

 

Off to the OBX part 2

Off to the OBX     Part 2

By John W. Vander Velden

 

 

The grand lighthouse in its new location.
The lighthouse has been moved nearly a quarter mile from its original place to protect it from the surf.
 

Our first day in the OBX broke clear and so we headed south to see what we had  prepared for months to see. For we had been practicing. We ran up the stairs in our home again and again. It has only ten steps but, if you run them twenty times you have reached a sizable number. For we intended to climb the Cape Hatteras Lighthouse. Eleven years ago we walked the grounds of the park, too early in the season to be allowed to climb. Jackie and I would remedy that situation. We had after all climbed many lighthouses, and now we prepared to climb the tallest masonry lighthouse in North America.

There are 257 steps we were told, but like I said we came prepared. The view was spectacular! But more we had accomplished a goal we had set for ourselves. But Hatteras was just the first, a few hours later we stood on the catwalk at the top of Bodie (pronounced Body) Lighthouse. The wind had picked up a bit, but together we enjoyed the view across the marshes of Bodie Island and the Atlantic in the distance and the shining waters of the bay beyond the other side of the island.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Bodie Island Lighhouse

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Up the stairs we go.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Later we walked out on that pier.

 

 

The next day sent us north through Duck, an interesting name for a town don’t you think, which had grown substantially in our absence, up to Currituck Beach and its lighthouse. We were told to prepare, for the winds at the catwalk were over thirty-five miles-per-hour. The blustery breeze added to the thrill of standing more than one hundred fifty feet up on a sunny morning. What a gem.

Currituck Beach Lighthouse

 

 

Most people have heard of the wild horses of Currituck. Abandoned by the Spanish in the sixteenth century, they are truly wild creatures, to be given a proper berth. But we shared the back of a pickup truck with another family while our guide, Gattor, told us all about the horses and countryside. In the sixteenth century the Spanish cast their horses overboard to lighten their ship that had run aground. The mustangs capable swimmers it seems. Now the wild horses of the OBX are the last descendants of those Spanish Mustangs. They are not the cute ponies they appear but wild beasts that roam over thousands of acres of dune land.  We saw more than thirty of the magnificent animals on the shore. The wind, the sand, and the horses,

made another adventure we will never forget.

We closed out the day walking the beach, watching the sea birds, a chain of pelicans flying single file out of the north passing us by and going on and out of sight far to the south. A hawk like bird, a kite I believe, hovered overhead for some moments. Those winged creatures mixed with a few gulls gave life to world we walked, a world of wind and waves, as the tide came in yet again following its age old cycle of rising and falling twice each day. It brought the perfect close to what was so near a perfect day.

 

 

 

 
 

 

 

 

Off to the OBX Part 1

Off to the OBX    Part 1

By John W. Vander Velden

 

If you don’t know what OBX means take heart, we were there for nearly two days before we made the connection. The locals use those three letters to identify their area...The Outer Banks.

View from the parking lot

It had been eleven years since our last visit and there were things the same, like the weather and the ocean, and things different, like thousands of new rental properties. And I expected as much when we chose OBX as our first escape location for the year. Made the adventure a road trip. I would not recommend a straight through drive and we took our time, sorta’, spreading the drive over three days.  Three days? Well yeah, we made a stop and took half a day visiting the Ark Encounter, which in truth added a day to the trip. The Ark itself was impressive and we wandered about the exhibits which were well done. The work they went through to create the lifelike animals on display is amazing.

Four hours plus driving east took us to Charleston, West Virginia, which seemed to make the OBX reachable the next day. Driving through the Blue Ridge Mountains and across the Shenandoah Valley was beautiful, though the I-64 snakes tightly with several seep grades both up and down.

We spent more than a half hour moving less than a quarter mile while we were in Norfolk, Virginia. So close and yet surrounded by an ocean of near stationary cars carrying countless passengers all hoping to reach their own destinations, but wedged together on lanes meant to be traveled, but for that time virtually a parking lot.

The sun had long set when we checked in, but one of the reasons we had come was the Atlantic, and to the beach we went, dark or not.

Our Home at the OBX

The ocean was almost dead calm, maybe six inch swells. Yet there, in the dark with the sky reflecting off the water I felt it. There is something about the sea shore. Something that reaches deep within me, rumbles places that are unreachable by sights and sounds. Something primal. Something emotional. But most of all something spiritual.  A power I could never describe. Something real, but intangible. It made the long stressful drive worth the effort and more.

The sun comes up early in May, but its rising found me walking the nearly
deserted beach, bare feet on the cool sand and splashed by cold water of the rising tide. I beat the sun three mornings in a row watching the coloring sky for the moment the sun’s sphere escaped the water. I live for those brief times when the day begins so clearly, when I find myself where the horizon is distant and clear. That I had the beach very nearly for my own an added bonus. It is too seldom that I find myself where wind water and sky intersect in such a way, and even now look forward to the next opportunity.

(490 Words) 5-15-2019

 

A Thousand Shades of Green

A Thousand Shades of Green               

 

By John W. Vander Velden

 

I view the landscape as I walk in the clear morning, the rising sun low beside me.  The grass and weeds marking the road’s edge, a border to the wide hayfield of tall grass and thick alfalfa, glistening with dew’s uncountable jewels.  In the distance, trees stand, a wood of ash, beech and maple, damp fresh leaves of innumerable tints contrast the snowy trunks of the yet bare sycamores.  It is spring, the world fresh and alive…awaken from winter’s sleep.  Beneath the pure blue sky…foliage moved by the gentle touch of the morning breeze are a thousand shades of green…the colors of the world that surrounds…Can there be a better description for the colors of spring? 

 

(121 Words)