Saturday we headed back to the Canaan area–mostly because it’s a relatively short drive with a ton of wilderness.

We went back up to Canaan Loop road and did a loop of Fire trails and the Plantation trail.

I did slide into a puddle, but not this one.

Luckily, although a little water got into my boots, my feet stayed dry.

These are actually from two weeks ago. I was just to lazy to post them.

We’d decided to hike around the Blackwater Canyon. Nothing strenuous, but I knew there would be some pretty views and that we would be unlike to see other people.

When they tell you the road isn’t suitable for passenger vehicles, they really do mean it.

We parked before the road completely degraded and walked to the Allegheny / Canyon Rim Trail.

Just past the Canyon Rim Trail, if you watch the side of the road you’ll find a short trail out to the overlook, where you can see into the Blackwater Canyon.

You can hear the creek running below, but even with the leaves fallen could not catch sight of it.

Between the overlook and Canyon Rim Trailhead you can look for another side trail to a waterfall.

This is a scramble and not recommended for all users.

But it is lovely.

The canyon rim trail itself has several creek crossings at the start, but is then wooded / rhododendron thickets.

It was chilly, but a gorgeous (and easy) hike.

The start of the month was all re-reads, but as the political news progressed, so did my ability to read new book.

First off, I read and really liked three new(ish) releases!

Spells for the Dead by Faith Hunter is her latest book in the Soulwood series, which runs parallel to the Jane Yellowrock series. The events in Jane’s series have gotten so big there haven’t been any clean conclusions to any of those books in awhile. This series, being more of a procedural, has a completed story arc, although Nell’s personal life is still a bit of a mess. Which is fine.

Conventionally Yours by Annabeth Albert is one I’d put off reading, since I generally dislike enemies to lovers, however, I was told it wasn’t that type of enemies to lovers story, so I picked it up, and was glad I did.

The Deadly Hours is a sequential anthology by Susanna Kearsley, Anna Lee Huber, Christine Trent, C.S. Harris. I’ll be honest, I didn’t like the third story at all, but the rest of the novellas were excellent.

Valor: Swords edited by Isabelle Melançon and Megan Lavey-Heaton is a graphic novel about self-rescuing princesses. It’s folk and fairy tales retold, with LGBT & POC main characters. It’s wonderful.

Glass Tidings by Amy Jo Cousins is a holiday story and it had a bunch of elements I really liked.

Plus, of course, I re-read books that I already knew I loved, because the start of the month needed all the comfort.

Fantasy, Supernatural

Tales from the Folly: A Rivers of London Short Story Collection (2020) Ben Aaronovitch (Rivers of London) 7/10

Spells for the Dead (2020) Faith Hunter (Soulwood) 8/10

Emerald Blaze (2020) Ilona Andrews (Hidden Legacy)

Romance, LGBT

Boyfriend Material (2020) Alexis Hall 9.5/10

And Everything Nice (2016) Ada Maria Soto 8.5/10

Joy (2017) C.S. Poe (A Lancaster Story) 8.5/10

Kneading You (2016) C.S. Poe (A Lancaster Story) 8.5/10

Conventionally Yours (2020) Annabeth Albert (True Colors) 8/10

Glass Tidings (2016) Amy Jo Cousins 8/10

Three Stupid Weddings (2018) Ann Gallagher 7.5/10

A Boy and His Dragon (2013) R. Cooper (Beings in Love) 7/10

His Mossy Boy (2017) R. Cooper (Beings in Love) 7.5/10

Ben’s Bakery and the Hanukkah Miracle (2018) Penelope Peters

Gifts for the Season: Winter & Christmas MM Charity Anthology (2020)

Romance

Real Men Knit (2020) Kwana Jackson

Mystery, Historical

Secrets in the Mist (2016) Anna Lee Huber (Gothic Myths) 8/10

A Vigil of Spies (2008) Candace Robb (Owen Archer) 8/10

The Deadly Hours (2020) Susanna Kearsley, Anna Lee Huber, Christine Trent, C.S. Harris 8/10

A Pretty Deceit (2020) Anna Lee Huber (Verity Kent) 7/10

Graphic Novels

Valor: Swords (2015) edited by Isabelle Melançon and Megan Lavey-Heaton 8.5/10

Audio Books

Half-Resurrection Blues, Audio Edition (2015) Daniel José Older, narrated by Daniel José Older (Bone Street Rumba) 8/10

Skinwalker, Audio Edition (2009/2010) Faith Hunter narrated by Khristine Hvam (Jane Yellowrock) 8/10

I still don’t feel like writing up the stats, so I’ll end here, and just ask if you’ve read anything really good in the past month.

Forgot to post these pictures from the first weekend we had our car back.

We went to Davis and decided to take the Blackwater River Trail at Canaan, and a trail we hadn’t walked before at Blackwater Falls.

Canaan Valley Start Park, Blackwater River Trail

Blackwater Falls State Park, River Road Trail, Yellow Birch Trail

It’s not really October, it’s actually March the 200th.

Coming as no surprise to ANYONE, it was all comfort all the time here. Because I just can’t even with pretty much anything right now.

Alexis Hall is a new favorite author; he writes MM romances, and even the ones that don’t work for me are still good and compelling (that would be the BDSM romance, which was kind of like reading an anthropological study for me, since that may as well be a foreign land to my brain).

I didn’t love either of these books as much as I loved Boyfriend Material, but they were still very enjoyable (even the one that felt like visiting a foreign land where I didn’t speak the language).

I did read a handful of new-to-me books, and although a couple of them worked for me, most didn’t. I feel kind of bad for those books, because there is a good chance it wasn’t the books, it was me. So if something looks interesting to you and I didn’t rate it highly, consider that it might just have been the wrong book for me right now.

Despite my lower rating, you may want to consider A Study in Honor. I didn’t love it, but that’s because it’s a SF dystopia, and I don’t like either of those genres. But the characters were great and I enjoyed the mystery as well as the Holmes & Watson riff.

And if you’re struggling like I am, I do have some recommendations for some of my favorite comfort reads. Part I, Part II, Part III, Part IV.

Romance, LGBT

Glitterland (2018) Alexis Hall (Spires) 8.5/10
For Real (2018) Alexis Hall (Spires) 7/10
Finders Keepers (2018) N.R. Walker 8.5/10
Galaxies and Oceans (2018) N.R. Walker8.5/10
Invitation to the Blues (2018) Roan Parrish (Small Change) 8/10
Raze (2019) Roan Parrish (Riven) 8/10
Two Rogues Make a Right (2020) Cat Sebastian (Seducing the Sedgwicks) 8/10
Something to Talk About (2020) Meryl Wilsner7/10
A Delicate Deception (2019) Cat Sebastian (Regency Imposters)
Passing Strange (2017) Ellen Klages
Elements of Retrofit (2017) N.R. Walker (Thomas Elkin)

Fantasy

Eight Skilled Gentlemen (1990) Barry Hughart (The Chronicles of Master Li and Number Ten Ox)

Fantasy, Urban

The Case of the Damaged Detective (2020) Drew Hayes (5-Minute Sherlock) 7.5/10

Science Fiction

A Study in Honor (2018) Claire O’Dell (The Janet Watson Chronicles)

Mystery

Death at La Fenice (1992) Donna Leon (Commissario Brunetti) 8.5/10
Execution in E (2020) Alexia Gordon (Gethsemane Brown) 7/10

Audio Books

Last Watch, Audio Edition (2009/2010) Sergei Lukyanenko translated by Andrew Bromfield narrated by Paul Michael 8.5/10

Non-Fiction

Mindf*ck: Cambridge Analytica and the Plot to Break America (2019) Christopher Wylie

Once more, I don’t feel up to going into the stats, except to say that I’ve already blown past my previous records for books read in a single year. I read 230 books in 2017, but as of today, I’ve already read 254 books. Which is insane, except that we are in a pandemic, and I did break my foot in May, both of which have kept me home more than usual.

So that’s October in books. Anyone read anything particularly excellent in October?

We left town early (skipping the Farmers Market) to try and beat some of the crowds. We did ok at Babcock, since it wasn’t bad when we arrived but starting to get crazy by the time we left.

A debate was had over whether or not this was a beaver.

The water wheel was turning!

On the hope that there was still some color (there wasn’t) we headed south to New River Gorge.

We’d considered hiking Endless Wall trail–and then saw cars parked alongside the road. So after regrouping we headed to Nuttallburg, which we hadn’t done before.

Nuttallburg is an abandoned mining town, and was full of lots of abandoned equipment.

An accident led us to seek a detour which led us to drive past Stauffer’s Marsh Preserve. Since we were mostly wandering, we decided to stop.

Stauffer’s Marsh Preserve is a small preserve, but it was a nice walk.

They day was overcast and gray, which is why we didn’t have any specific hiking plans, so little color came out in the pictures.

With rain forecast across the state, we decided to head to the Eastern panhandle to hit an orchard, and then see where we ended up.

An accident that stopped traffic led us to seek an alternate route, and that led us to visit two new places.

We literally did a three-point turn in the road upon seeing the sign for Sleepy Creek Lake after we ended up driving through the Sleepy Creek Wildlife Management Area.

We had no idea what to expect, and were quite shocked to discover that Sleepy Creek WMA is huge (22,928 acres). Despite the sky being overcast, it was a gorgeous drive.

Since it’s hunting season, we didn’t even attempt a hike (since we had no safety gear) but did walk across the dam.

Saturday’s hike was somewhat decided on-the-fly. We knew we were going to stop at Valley Falls, but not sure where we wanted to go from there.

We’d discussed Cathedral, as well as the Davis / Canaan area, but decided that hiking the Otter Creek trail would be gorgeous if the leaf color was good.

It was and it was.

The WV Tourism site claimed that Valley Falls State Park would be good to visit for leaf color, so we took an extra scenic route and made a quick stop at Valle Falls Saturday morning.

The color was a little disappointing, but the drive along 310 was quite lovely.

I had a flagpole on my deck, and generally hung my US flag on US holidays and the WV flag on WV day.

Late this spring, I ordered two more flags: and LGBT Pride flag (Philadelphia) and a Black Lives Matter flag.

It took more than a month, but my flags finally arrived, so early summer I hung up my BLM flag and left it up 24/7. (The US flag (as per US Flag Code) would up after sun rise, down at sunset, and didn’t go out if it was raining.)

I live on a high-traffic street, which is why I got the BLM flag.

I am a white woman in West Virginia, the third whitest state in the US. Yeah, where I live is more diverse than the rest of the state because of the university, but it’s still pretty damned white in here.

Racism is something I have had the privilege and luxury of ignoring—because it just wasn’t something that I saw. I knew it existed, but I didn’t see that there was much I could DO about it in my day-to-day life.

Then the Black Lives Matter movement happened, and I finally realized that it wasn’t enough to not be a racist, it was my responsibility to become anti-racist. Unfortunately, there was a lot going on personally for me, and I failed to do anything. (I have struggled with mental health issues since I was a teenager, and when things are difficult, I can manage going to work but little beyond that.)

But this spring was so awful, I realized that the ABSOLUTE MINIMUM I could do was put up signs, because I have white privilege and it is my responsibility to speak out against racism since it is predominantly a white problem. Yes, other types of racism exist, but in the US whites—particularly white men—have power and privilege and have blithely used that privilege to further consolidate wealth and power. And if you think that isn’t real, I invite you to research white housing covenants.

So I got my flag, and I hung it up and fretted that I should do more, but failed (mostly because of mental health issues).

Late summer I got an email from Gwen. Her mom had spent her life in WV politics and had worked with Mike Caputo, and so remembering that I’d put up signs in previous years asked if a sign for him could be put up in my yard.

Of course!

So the sign went up and I thought nothing more about it.

A month or so ago, the news was all about white supremacists harassing a BLM march in Preston county, and making Danielle Walker specifically a target. I realized (I’m slow sometimes) that I could ask about getting one of her signs to put in my yard. And up it went.

Earlier this week, we looked out to realize that someone has stolen the Danielle Walker sign from our yard AND come up to the deck, torn down our flagpole and stolen the BLM flag.

But they left the Mike Caputo sign.

If you’re not familiar with WV politics, Mike Caputo is a white male. Danielle Walker is a Black woman.

If you think racism is a thing of the past or that white privilege doesn’t exist, then not only have you not been paying attention, you have been willfully ignoring what has been going on around you for your entire life.

Which is, itself, white privilege.

Wednesday we took the afternoon often and headed out to Coopers Rock to see the leaves and for a midweek hike.

We walked to the overlook, then hiked the Rhododendron and Mont Chateau trails (my favorites).

A fair amount of color, but it was really dry.

At the Overlook.

Even middle of the day on a Wednesday there were quite a few people there.

Normally this spot is inaccessible unless you’re willing to get wet up to your knees, and you still have to be careful because the water rushes through this spot. Instead there was a still pool and just a trickle of water.

Since the weather wasn’t great, we headed over to the Canaan Wildlife Refuge and Beale Trails, because I wanted to get down to the river.

First you walk through fields before you head down the hills, through the woods, to the river.

Despite the gentle rain, it was a lovely walk.