Last week I drove down to West Virginia to meet my mom and stepdad who flew in from Texas to visit family and enjoy the cool, fall weather.
As I was driving through the rural Pennsylvania roads on my way, I caught sight of a stone wall that I thought would make for a cool picture and came across an Amish family just leaving a field, so I snuck out of my car like a weirdo and snapped some pics. They started to leave so I creepishly ran up behind them and asked some naive questions, like "Do you know when the Apple and Cheese Festival is?" so I could lead into my next question, "Is that a miniature horse? Do you mind if I take a picture of it?"…
When I arrived at my Grandma's house, my family and parents were there and we enjoyed a delicious home cooked meal. The next day I hung out at my cousin's house and we took the ATV around her parent's property, got caught in a rainstorm, which made for a more exciting ride and said hi to her cute (not miniature) horses.
My stepdad, James brought a little of the south up to the north with his chicken and sausage gumbo, while looking fabulous.
My mom and stepdad are both retiring in the next few years from Nasa/Boeing and their retirement plan is pretty sweet. They are going to build a barn with an apartment next to my Grandma's house to spend the summer months and also recently purchased 13 acres near the family cabin in Glady, WV. During the winter they will be on their sailboat in the Caribbean, wherever the wind takes them. So while they were up visiting, they scoped out where they plan to put their barn.
On Tuesday, my mom, stepdad and I headed to Glady to spend a couple days at the family cabin, Lone Pine Camp. When we got there we unpacked our stuff and took a walk to go explore mom and James' new property down the road. It was the first time stepping on their land as property owners. We hiked around, looking for an old logging road and I was scoping out trees the whole time for a treehouse that they plan to eventually build instead of a cabin (which I'm stoked about!).
That night, James cooked steaks and corn on the cob on the campfire, and while we were sitting around the fire, heard a faint 'meow' in the distance. My mom thought it was a baby mountain lion and my stepdad was worried that mama mountain lion might be right behind it. Of course I'm walking closer to the sound, calling it as my mom kept saying "Stacey maybe you shouldn't be doing that". It got closer and closer, then, out popped a big, ferocious, orange tabby cat.
We later found out the cat's owner who had a cabin up the road had since passed away. But she was well fed, probably because she's so friendly. We called her Bob Lily Kitty and she hung out with us the whole time.
The next day, we went on a 9 mile roundtrip hike to the High Falls, the trailhead is right up the road from the Cabin and practically a stone's throw from Mom and James' new property. The trail traverses up the mountain and at the top, the forest changes to pine trees and drops in temperature. Once you reach the bottom of the other side of the mountain, you walk along the old scenic train tracks for a while then end up at the falls. It is well worth the hike.
After heading down the mountain and walking back to the Cabin, my mom was gathering flowers for Kurt and I didn't even notice as I was snapping pictures of her that the backpack was completely unzipped. We both probably looked like total dorks and I'm sure Kurt had a good laugh.
I had such a good time, as always, in West Virginia and can't wait until my parents are enjoying their summers here, where one day my future kids will have memories like I did, in this wild and wonderful state!
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