Summer 2013 Starts

For 2013 we needed to remain at home until Thurs, July 11. We left on Friday morning, and headed to southwesten VA. We have not been to the Skyline Drive/Blue Ridge Parkway for 20 years and intend to pull the trailer down most of the way on it. There is a tunnel that's a little short for us just past the 1st (Thorton Gap) entrance. We picked a convenient Wal-Mart in Hagerstown MD to stop for our first overnight. For those that were with us on last years trip, there were no car fires in the parking lot or anything else worth photographing here.
Next morning we headed down I-81 to a KOA around Harrisonburg VA. I- 81 runs near the Skyline Drive and Blue Ridge Parkway. We were about 50 miles down just outside the Shenendoah National Park boundry, and close to our entrance at Swift Run. Campground was a nice KOA.
They had a flock of Chickens that roamed the park "free range" eating the insects They had just had about 6" of rain in 2 hours the previous evening. and we heard stories of how water rises and falls very fast on the mountains. Saturday afternoon we went over to the Skyline drive in the truck, to scout out campgrounds and see the Big Meadows visitor center.

Realizing how close we were to W. VA, on Sunday we drove over to Cass. Cass is the small isolated mountain community where Liz's dad grew up. Liz remembered fondly the times she spent there as a child with her grandfather, and grandmother. Her grandparents have long since died, but Liz loves to go past the place where their house stood. The house was razed years ago but the pump Liz remembers  is still along the side of the property. If you've been to our backyard, the hand pump behind our deck is a reminder of the pump in WVA.
Cass in Liz's dad's day was a logging community. There the men went up the mountain every morning to harvest the red spruce native to the cool mountain climate. Liz's dad did a bit of logging when he returned from WWll and prior to coming to Ohio. The need for a means to move the massive spruce trees gave rise to the invention of the Shay engine. These engines were much stronger and because of their gear driven wheels they could easily haul heavy loads of spruce up and down the slopes. If you'd like a better explanation of this let me know and I'll put you in touch with Liz's brother John, who is a railroad buff. He's run everything from the Cuyahoga Valley steam train to CSX locomotives hauling freight thru Ohio. The locomotive you see here is a Shay running in Cass, and hauling passengers on the scenic Railroad. Cass retains a number of working Shay engines all on the scenic RR.
The antenna here is another feature of the area. Back in the 50's the government was looking for a remote part of the country for their radio telescopes. They found it here in the Greenbriar river valley. There were, and still are few people here, and these telescopes are shielded from radio interference by high mountains around this area. This is the newest and largest telescope, just built recently. People, and other countries from all over the world come to tiny little Cass WVA to look into the heavens and learn more about the stars.
I purchased a digital video camera recently. I hope to include some videos on this blog, so here is the first one, from Cass. It is recorded in HD video, and I'm a novice at this & still experimenting with sizes that the campgrounds internet will swallow, and the resolution I can't show you all. Let me know if you have any ideas, or would like a higher res copy.