It's gonna be a long one...

The Birthday Celebration went off without a hitch.  About 30-40 people showed up.  Which I guess was down from last year, but I was grateful that anybody came at all.  We had a special guest – Pearl Buck!  Lol but really we had a woman who calls herself an actress but is really just an impersonator.  She dressed up and gave a speech as Pearl Buck.  It was actually kind of cool.  And the lady was really nice and friendly and grew up in Euclid, Ohio.  What are the freaking chances.  Crazy.  After she spoke, some awards were given to students who participated in a writers activity.  Out of the 20 entries, only three or so showed up to receive their awards: a free book and passes for two free tours.  Big whup.  Then the cake was cut and everybody stood around awkwardly for a while.  Some of my friends had shown up, which kind of impressed me.  But really they didn’t show up for the event; they just wanted to jam in the orchard.  Surprise surprise.  But no biggie.  I was actually relieved that I could get away from watching old people eat cake to hang out with my buddies.  I kept asking my boss what I was supposed to be doing or if I could help in any way, but there was seriously nothing to do, so I didn’t feel bad going to the other side of the property to listen to a song or two. 

Saturday night there was a bonfire at a friend’s house.  The fire was huge and they kept going into their house and pulling out pieces of furniture that they wanted to burn.  Talk about hillbilly.  There was an old couch that they threw on too.  I’m not sure if any of you are aware, but apparently it’s some kind of West Virginia University football tradition to burn couches.

 I guess some kids got arrested last year for doing it.  I don’t know.  Needless to say, burning couches is a West Virginny thing.  Again, as always, the guys were jamming out.  There was new guy thrown in though.  His name is Chance McCoy (which sounds like some kind of made up rock star name) and he’s a champion fiddle player.  I guess he won some contest that named him the best fiddler in the state.  So that was pretty cool.  I don’t think he played the fiddle all night though.  Instead he played banjo and he kicked ass at that too.  It was a perfectly clear night and the stars were awesome.  We sat by the fire until really late, when the fog started to roll in.  

I got to see how fiddles were made.  There’s a local musician who builds and works on string instruments.  I got to see a fiddle in the different stages of completion.  It’s pretty awesome.  Stupid me didn’t take pictures.  But I guarantee I’ll be back to the workshop and I’ll try to learn a little more about the process.

My fingers are hurting from the mandolin.  Today I was trying to practice the scale that Tyler wrote down for me, but its sounds terrible so I thought I would screw around on it.  One of my favorite songs is from the Into the Wild soundtrack: Rise by Eddie Vedder.  It starts out on the mandolin and I think it is such a beautiful song.  So I tried to figure it out for myself.   I have no idea if I’m in the right key and I’m only playing single notes instead of chords, but to me, it sounds right.  I kept working further into the song and every time I felt like what I was doing was correct, I’d hop outta my chair and do a little jig.  There's also a Paul McCartney song that came out a couple years ago that was used in an iTunes commerical that I want to learn.  I am super pumped about learning this instrument.  I always wished I had learned guitar.  I tried to teach myself a couple years ago, but I got too frustrated.  But I can definitely see myself sticking with mandolin for a little while.  

Monday comes along, and with it, my parents.  They arrived mid afternoon and wouldn't leave until Thursday.  I had the whole week planned.  And since we did so much, I'll prolly skip over things, but I'll do my best to keep it interesting.

soooo happy that we're taking pictures

Monday we went to Droop Mountain Battlefield and visited the overlook tower.

mama's gonna love this picture

Then we pranced around Beartown State Park (no bear this time). 

It's the Ledges in Thompson on steroids.

Afterwards I cooked a delicious dinner and the landlords invited us to go to the farm above our houses.  Ma and Pa brought the love of my life, Cody, with them and he'll be living with me from now on.  I wasn't sure how he was going to react around livestock (there's a horse and three cows at the farm).  Cody was totally freaked out by the horse and the cows were totally curious about Cody.  After a while, he calmed down and realized he wasn't going to be eaten by monsters.

Tuesday we drove up to the Cass Scenic Railroad.  I never thought of myself as interested in railroads, but this one was pretty cool.  There are lots of intricate details that I could tell you about, but I don't remember and don't really care. 

Whitaker station

the view from Whittaker station

Old man's gotta bad hip but can still jump inside a train engine.

Typical Garry.  He got to ride in the engine on the way down. 

 At Cass, we took the two hour trip to Whittaker station.  There's another four trip trip, but I didn't think I could last that long on a train.  The station was pretty cool and had a place to walk around and see the old logging machinery.  Of course my dad got to talking to the brakeman and the engineer and some how, God only knows, he got to ride in the engine on the way down the mountain.  Typical Garry.  The guy who took our picture was super jealous. 

After Cass, we went to Green Bank, which is where the National Radio Astronomy Observatory is.  I still don't really know what is does and I'm not even gonna try to explain.  Something about space and physics and the universe and science.  But it's huge and pretty interesting I guess.

You can't really tell how big it is from the picture, but it can hold a football field.

The tour guide was a college kid from Marshall - theater performance major.  So of course he was crazy.  And SUPER awkward.  I mean seriously: science plus theater equals socially inept.  And of course he had his eye on me.  All socially inept dudes do.  He came up to me after the tour and of course struck up a conversation with Garry.  That man will talk to anyone.  He told me he was gonna visit me at work.  Awesome.

good ole ma and pa

 So Tuesday was our man-made wonders day and Wednesday was our natural wonders day.  We started out at the Cranberry Glades and then tried to visit the Falls at Hills Creek, but there was a butt load of stairs and I don't much like stairs and neither does my dad's bum hip (I'm sure he's gonna be happy about this).  So we ended up hiking the High Rocks trail off the Scenic Highway.  It was 2 miles in, 2 out, and I wasn't sure how the rents were gonna take it, but they did just fine.  Cody was wonderful on the trail.  He understood not to run too far off, although he was super pumped to be off the leash.  The High Rocks trail leads to an overlook of the Little Levels similar to the overlook at Droop Mountain, but just from a different angle. 

Little Levels

soooooo happy

two walking sticks.  no waiting.

happy puppy!!!!!

 After surviving the hike, we drove down the Scenic Highway to another overlook but no other overlook is as great at the High Rocks Trail.  We stopped and had lunch and then moved on to the next overlook.  There were a bunch of cars there, some cop cars.  And there were a few people sitting around outside when we got out to look at the overlook.  My dad being who he is, struck up a conversation and found out that they were there because there was a missing person in the Cranberry Wilderness.  This interested me because as you may remember, I hiked in the Wilderness over Memorial Day.  I mentioned this to the cops and they found that interesting because the person had gone missing just before Mem Day.  They asked what trails I took.  I said Big Beechy to the Middle Fork.  They asked where we had parked.  I said the Big Beechy Trailhead.  They asked if I had seen any cars at the trailhead.  I said I think there was a BMW and the only reason I remember that is because you don't often associate someone who owns a BWM with someone who hikes in the wilderness.  As it turns out, the person who owned that car is the person who is missing.  That's right folks, I am the only eye witness to this vehicle (other than my hiking group of course).  The patrolman asked if he could ask me a few questions in his car so that he could get as much information as possible.  I told him all the details I could remember of the weekend.  But we hadn't seen any solo hikers in the two days.  I was totally freaked out.  I still am.  Cuz seriously what are the chances that we would have chosen that trail, that no one else had parked there, and that we would have come across the cops at the overlook?!

 

So I'm sick of typing, but I'm still not done telling the story of my parents' being here.  You'll just have to wait until tomorrow.  I'll leave you with a cliffhanger...we had surprise visitors....