Saturday we drove down to Blackwater Falls, and of course stopped in Thomas for lunch, and stopped TWICE in Davis for ice cream.

We went to the Flying Pig for lunch, and I think we both liked what we got. They served breakfast all day, so Michael got french toast. Since I was saving room for ice cream, I just got the cheese quesadilla. Inexpensive and plenty of food.

Meant to go back to Thomas and get a picture of my favorite building after the light hit it, but my ankle was hurting, so we skipped it.

Much of Thomas is slowly being renovated and rehabilitated, but it’s a slow process.

Here’s the Cheat River along Route 50.

And this is why we preferred to be home before dark. Most of this section of Route 50/92 is like this.

Sunday, we went down to Weston for the Jackson’s Mill Jubilee. It’s part craft fair, part Civil War reenactments, and part trying to entice people to come back to Lewis County.

Aside from, once again, recognizing how happy I am to live in the future and not in the past, the best part was going through the mill.

It’s a working mill, and unlike other mill’s we’ve seen, you can wander through the entire building–there is just a rope to keep you from getting to close to the whirling gears, which could certainly do some damage.

Here is the pond, and the apparatus that allows them to control the flow of water into the mill. Yes, it’s simply a board that lifts up, controlled by a lever from inside the mill.

Looking out from the mill, towards the pond, you can see the water flowing down the chute into the mill. Along the left side of the chute, you can see the rope that controls the water flow.

Here are the gears in motion, when water was moving through the mill (and they were grinding corn above)

Here are the same gears at rest:

You can see that the wheel is spinning freely–the gears/mechanism it would be connected into is pulled away. In the picture below of the grinding stone, this is beneath the grind stone that has been flipped over to display it’s grinding surface. To turn the stone, the two wheels would be meshed together.

Here, water is flowing down–the light area in the back is where the water is going. In the foreground you can see the gear whirring.

And here it is at rest.

Here is a grind stone that is not in use–it’s upside down so you can see the grinding face.

Here you see that the mill could have had three stones grinding at once, but only one is in use.

And here’s the mill from the outside. I was standing beside the pond when I took the picture.

There are, of course, more pictures if you click through to Flickr.

Lots and lots of stuff there that fascinated me.

As we were driving to Swallow Falls, I saw this old barn, and was so fascinated by it, I made Michael stop on the way back.

I’m guessing this was Hurricane Sandy Damage, because it looked like it had been otherwise kept in good repair, and the property around it was in very good shape.

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This was move-in weekend, so as a Morgantown resident, I knew there was only one thing to do: get the hell out of town.

We chose to drive east, to the Maryland State Parks of Deep Creek Lake and Swallow Falls. Having grown up in WV, where all the State Parks are free, it always comes as a bit of a shock when we have to pay to get in. But considering the amount of damage at Swallow Falls State Park from Hurricane Sandy, I couldn’t really complain.

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Saturday, we went to Deep Creek MD and Swallow Falls State Parks, and hiked around. Last year, we tried to go to Swallow Falls but it was closed, due to Hurricane Sandy.

There is still evidence of the destruction wrought everywhere we looked, even ten months after the storm.

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Sunday would have been my cousin Ben’s 33rd birthday. My aunt and uncle held a memorial hike along the Appalachian Trail on Sunday, but I’ve felt very uncomfortable recently around groups of people I don’t know, so Michael and I chose to hike up Seneca Rocks, which is one of the first places he climbed.

There are two ways to get up Seneca Rocks: climb the face or hike from the side. We–unsurprisingly–chose the hike.

Here are some views of Seneca Rocks:

This is the end of the hiking path: only climbers with proper gear are supposed to go beyond here.

We also made the slightly more arduous hike (because it’s not a path, but a trail) to the base of the rock. We came in from the left, so it’s looking up at the lower face on the far left. Here’s a look upwards.

This is a gorgeous stream running below the rock face. One of the nice things about visiting state parks is the water ways tend to be clean and clear and unpolluted (ie, not orange from acid mine drainage, which used to be the state of all the creeks local to Morgantown.)

Here’s the view from the observation deck:

And here’s a sign that caught my fancy. You could see several areas of erosion where people took “shortcuts.”

Since we made an actual weekend of our trip (staying overnight instead of just a day trip) we had our leisure to visit several of the parks and recreation areas.

Spruce Knob is West Virginia’s highest peak. We did not hike to the top, but instead drove (I believe it’s an 11 mile hike).

Despite being the end of May, it was quite cold–there was even ice on the ground under the observation tower. But it was also gorgeous, and there were not many people, so one could actually get a sense of the isolation of the area.

It’s nice to be in a mostly wild area, and not see or hear other humans.

Mind you, it’s not quiet in these areas–nature isn’t particularly silent–just peaceful.

Coming back down from Spruce Knob, we made the mistake of listening to the GPS, which kept wanting us to turn down roads marked “Private! No Trespassing!” or overgrown dirt roads.

On the other hand, it was an absolutely gorgeous drive.

We also took a short hike at Dolly Sods

We also saw many signs of Superstorm Sandy. There are some trails throughout the various state parks that are still closed, and we had to clamber over several downed trees on some of the trails.

And there was plenty of beauty to admire.

Perhaps my interest in decay is unhealthy, but it’s fascinating to see how quickly the monuments of man disintegrate.

At Seneca Rocks.

Cool Springs Park along Route 50. We’ve stopped here before. It’s still fascinating.

Played around with processing some of these pictures as black & white. Any thoughts?

I think it would be very strange to live in Sharpsburg, an area that seems completely given over to Antietam Battlefield National Park.

I wonder if it is hard to live so much in the past and in the history of such horror.

As I said yesterday, I took very few pictures of the battlefields. Here are the pictures I took within the park area.

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As we walked around Antietam, I was surprised at how large the area was. I have no experience with war (for which I am greatly thankful) so I really had no idea what to expect.

The day was beautiful, which made it even stranger to consider that 150 years ago so very many men had bled and died there.

Here are some of the pictures I took at Antietam–not many pictures of the battlefield–I mostly walked and reflected.

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Saturday was supposed to be gorgeous, so we hopped in the car and went to Shepherdstown & Antietam.

We spent most of the day (that wasn’t spent in the car) walking around Antietam, but we did stroll around downtown Shepherdstown. And ate two very good meals there.

Didn’t take my camera out much around Shepherdstown, except for the cemeteries.

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Here are some of my favorite pictures from Philadelphia.

Historical reenactor climbing the steps in Congress Hall

Miniature Cast Pewter Toy Train at the Liberty Bell Center

Elfreth’s Alley

Second Bank of the US

Historical reenactors walking to Congress Hall

Dragon above parking lot in Chinatown

Window of the Second Bank of the US building

Elfreth’s Alley

That are other pictures if you click through to FLickr, including pictures of cobblestones and bricks, because they fascinate me.

Besides being sick for weeks keeping my away from here, we also went to Philadelphia last weekend.

Why Philadelphia in January? Because our friend Tania was on the east coast! (YAY)

But since I’d never been to Philadelphia, we made it an extra long weekend, and took in the sights.

There were a couple disappointments: Christ Church Cemetery is closed January and February, so I could peek in through one set of bars, but a brick wall blocked me from seeing the vast majority of the cemetery. And I would have enjoyed seeing the inside of one of the restored old homes, but for the most part, we had a lovely trip, and got to see almost everything we wanted.

Probably my favorite thing all weekend (besides seeing Tania and Nathan) was the Printing Office in Franklin Court.

The park ranger running the printing press was fabulous. There were a handful or so of kids when we walked in, and he was demonstrating the press, and showing them all the bits and telling them how things worked–it was really lovely.

The press he was using was set up for a copy of the Declaration of Independence.

The second press was set up to print various pamphlets that would have circulated in Franklin’s time running the printing office.

One of the things we learned was that the terms “Upper Case” and “Lower Case” came from typesetting. Capital letters were kept in the top boxes, hence “upper case.”

I asked my own questions, and purchased a copy of the Declaration that had been printed there.

We also went to the post office, where I mailed my postcards. I didn’t take any pictures, but the woman there was very nice, and told us about about some of the things Benjamin Franklin did as post master, including “franking” or marking mail with the signature B. Free Franklin.

Friends and family should look closely at the post mark on the postcards they receive, as it’s one of a kind.

As I said earlier, I spent a lot of time walking around and photographing the ruins of St. John’s Episcopal Church at Harpers Ferry.

The church was used as a barracks and a hospital during the Civil War, and was damaged at that time. Although the church was rebuilt, it was soon abandoned after a new church was built, leaving these remains on the hill.

Facing north, from below the ruins. ^

Facing WSW, looking in through one of the doors. ^

Facing ENE, taken from the hill behind the ruins. ^

Facing east, looking into the ruins from behind. ^

Facing southwest, from inside the ruins. ^

I took a lot more pictures, many of which are on my Flickr stream.