Homeward Bound

On Sunday, Dad, Cole and I descended upon George Washington's Mount Vernon Estate.



Occupying the lawn at Mt Vernon


The house's exterior walls are clad in wood, grooved to look like sandstone blocks and the length of the house is more than triple its width.  New World tricks to give an illusion of grandeur.  It certainly would fool anyone spying it from below on the Potomac River. 

While Dad toured the house, I walked with Cole through the gardens.  Did you know that George Washington had designed a conservatory?  Turn of the 19th century, he was growing his own citrus--I had no idea he had a green thumb.



The orange flowers had me stumped for a while, but I think they're Montbretias.  Right?


Cole and I snuck in a quick run through the forest.



Hundreds of tourists up at the house--but no one on the trails.  Not complaining!


While waiting for Dad, I discovered two small octogonal buildings flanking the mansion, hidden by the landscaping:  outdoor privvies called necessaries.  Now, why couldn't we have kept the name 'necessary'?  Instead we have latrines, outhouses and PortaJohns. 



Visiting the Pioneer Farm, heading up to the 16 sided barn.


Washington was an agricultural innovator.  One of his inventions was the treading barn (seen above) where sheaths of wheat were laid on slotted floors, then horses walked on them, releasing the grains to fall on a collection floor below.  Far easier than having to thresh it by hand!


After leaving Dad at Dulles Airport, I headed South.  The 12 hour drive had me arriving in Auburn around 2AM Monday--plenty of time to unpack and take a nap before work.  Somehow, I ended up in West Virginia instead!  

Monongahela National Forest sprawls across almost a million acres--a million!  Within the forest lies the 17000 acre Dolly Sods Wilderness.  The ecology there is quite unique:  bogs and heath eco-types at higher elevations.  A must see for me anyway!




At this point, the car suspects nothing!





Cole can see those mountains calling to us.

 
Mapquest's estimate on the drive time was too low.  Their computer program recognizes the posted speeds on secondary roads, but cannot take into account that you aren't going to reach 45 mph when you're continuously downshifting to hop around a hairpin curve at 15 mph.  Possible exception being when I burnished my brake pads trying to keep it under 60 mph going down a 3 mile long 10% grade mountain.  In spite of these facts, I highly recommend the drive.  Excitement and beautiful vistas, I even crossed the Continental Divide twice.  The greatest road adventures are in the area between Petersburg and Seneca Rocks.  I was fortunate to be there on a quiet Sunday night.  You don't want to be negotiating these roads when the traffic volume is higher than the 4 cars I passed in 3 hours.  The dirt roads are wider than the paved roads?!?  Unless you're in a truck, you're sunk if you drop a tire off these newly paved roads because there's a 6" drop from the asphalt to the small, soft shoulder that tapers off to nowhere.

This is what greeted me at the trailhead in Dolly Sods:



More excitement!


The pristine conditions of the area are a testament to Nature's ability to heal and be at its best, even when Mankind has been at its worst. The entire area was one big practice range for bombers.  Cole was not going to be off-leash at any time during our run. 

Half our run was through mossy mountain laurel forests.

Other part was through muck.

Newton trail shoes...my favorites!

A treacherous 3 miler.

Perhaps my concerns about unexploded ordnances and nuisance bears (sign about that too) had me preoccupied.  Or maybe, I am simply a klutz.  I tripped and fell off the trail and down a hill...taking Cole down with me (revenge for all the times he's been at fault for my falls).  As I was laying there all tangled up with my dog, I assessed that neither one of us had broken any bones, nor had we been peppered with 70 year old shrapnel on the roll down. Always look for the positive.  Doing my part to sweep for explosives did injure my foot and back, so we had to be satisfied with a short 3 miler at 4000' elevation.

Driving out of Monongahela I saw Seneca Rocks.



A file photo from Wiki, I saw them at dusk and they seemed to glow with the diminishing light.



Being at work by 8 AM Monday was still a possibility, had I not stopped for a nap at a boarded up truck stop in middle of nowhere, WV.  The only light in the whole place came from the telephone booth.  I hadn't seen one of those in 10 years!...foreboding sign.  I flopped into the back with Cole and attempted to set the alarm clock on my cell phone.  Guess what?  No service, no alarm.  No worries, such an uncomfortable bed could only lend me an hour of sleep.  Wrong.  5 AM, I awakened because Cole's elbows were jabbing me in the ribs--thankfully.  Otherwise, I might have pulled a Rip Van Winkle back there!

I pushed the poor Hyundai to her limits and we screeched onto farm after noon.  Still managed to log in 8 hrs of work on Monday--not all was lost!

Spent a couple of hours before dawn on Tuesday emptying the horse trailer and readying it for Tommy's appointment at the Vet School. Tommy was however, uncharacteristically, uncooperative.  His balking made us 45 minutes late for our appointment and a Brahma bull was now in line before us.  



This bull pitched an absolute fit, jumping around and falling in the chutes to get be finally loaded onto the tilt table.





Tommy was almost too big for the table.

 My kid is too girthy to fit in their chutes, so I walked him up to the table and pushed him up to it, we tied him off and the table slowly lifted him up, no fuss, no muss.

Getting a pedicure.

 

Good news is that it isn't foot rot (previous diagnosis) nor tendon or ligament damage.  Bad news is that my method of hoof trimming hasn't been adequate.  Tommy had developed a false sole and that caused debris to cake up between the layers.  So much hoof material had to be removed that he needed a temporary shoe.



The rubber shoe provides lift and support.

The hens surprised me by laying their first eggs.  I found 6 in the coop.



Green ones are from the Ameraucanas.



While I was in the coop, a Brahman hen flew out the door.  She and I had a lovely little run through the pasture.  I won.



She's lucky.  My patience was fleeting, Cole would have been the next to pursue her!

The next two month promise many hours of overtime, with only a Saturday here and there off.  That's fine with me though, all this will more than pay for my next trip out West in October.

After the 2100 miles driven over 4 1/2 days, the car now has 21,000 miles on the odometer--she's less than a year old.  Now that's how you break in a car!

Cole and I have now completed trail runs in 28 states, over half way now.