Seneca Rocks

Time has flown by this summer, filled with storytelling, travel, selling, gardens and canning. I realized last night that I never posted photos from a day in June when we stopped at Seneca Rocks, a natural rock formation in eastern West Virginia that draws thousands of visitors every year.

So grand!

While I have posted about the Rocks before, we've never been at the park when the pioneer cabin was open for tours, so this was our lucky day.

A better photo of the homestead from Wikipedia:

This place, at the mouth of Seneca creek. was the homestead of Jacob Sites, and early settler in the region who arrived around 1830. He built a one-room cabin first, and additions came as his family grew, and in later years his sons and grandsons who lived in the house also made changes. According to family legend, the home was used as an inn during the Civil War, and later, when the family moved to the nearby community of Onego (pronounced one-go) two doctors were said to have lived there and made more changes.

The kitchen area was probably the original structure.

Check out the height of this door. Larry is pretty short, so a man of 5'8" or more would have to duck to go through.

The house is now part of the Seneca Rocks state park and is maintained by volunteers who plant the gardens and give tours.

We wanted to take a tour but the guide was occupied with two other visitors who had a very unfriendly dog that growled and snapped when we came in so we looked around on our own.

At the time of this photo, the house was being used to store hay and farm equipment. Looks like it was in danger of complete ruin, doesn't it? If you click on the photo to enlarge it, you can see the "needle", a pillar of rock staning in the center gap of the towering rock cliff.

Nearby, Seneca creek rushes along to its union with the North Fork of the South Branch of the Potomac River. It's easy to imagine how it must have been in early times, with the creeks and rivers providing the "map" by which people traveled.

Next time, perhaps we'll be the lucky ones who get the tour. For now, I'm just glad that I finally was able to see inside the homestead after visiting the park so many times over the years without an opportunity to do so.

Copyright Susanna Holstein. All rights reserved. No Republication or Redistribution Allowed without attribution to Susanna Holstein.

Seneca Rocks

The light was too good to pass up as I drove past Seneca Rocks Sunday afternoon. Light rain had fallen for part of my trip but now the sun was breaking through, lighting up the rocks.

 It took only a few minutes for the light to change and the sky to start looking threatening. A few miles down the road (and up the mountain) I was in the rain again.

Goodbye Rocks, until next time. 

Copyright Susanna Holstein. All rights reserved. No Republication or Redistribution Allowed without attribution to Susanna Holstein.

Home Again--What a Boxing Day!

In England, Boxing Day is the day after Christmas (also St. Stephen's Day). When I was a child I was confused by the notion of boxing the day after Christmas--I was pretty sure it had to do with siblings fighting about their presents. When I asked Mom about it, she explained that Boxing Day is the day you box up food and gifts and go visiting. Her definition was not exactly the same as more official versions, but it made sense to me.

My parents traditionally had open house on Christmas evening. Friends and family came all evening to eat, sing, talk and generally have a good time. The big dining table would be laden with good things to eat--eggnog, fruitcake, mince pies, sausage rolls, cookies, tarts and all manner of things not part of our normal diet. And we could eat as much of it as we wanted. It was amazing. Aunt Doris and Uncle Al (not our real relatives, but friends of our parents) would come with their sons. Uncle Bill and Aunt Thelma (or was it Theresa?), also not real relatives, would come, and he would be a bit tipsy as he sat at the piano playing carols and singing. These friends usually brought small gifts for each of us children so we adored them. Our uncles sometimes came with their children, neighbors stopped in, and if our Dad's parents were in from Texas or Louisiana or wherever they were living or traveling at the time, they came with with our funny Aunt Ellen. Everyone would be dressed up, and the evening did not end until long after us children were sent to bed.

My parents continued the tradition, although as they aged it narrowed down pretty much to just us--their children and grandchildren. After I moved to West Virginia, I was seldom able to be there because our mountain roads and our wood stove don't allow us to go far from home in winter. After my parents passed away, my sister Mary continued the tradition at her home, and this year, Julie took on the party.

Since the weather looked reasonable for the weekend, Larry and I decided yesterday morning to make the 12-hour round trip to be at the party. Our nephew Brian is heading to Afghanistan soon and he was in from California for the weekend, and that was even more reason to go.

We had a very good time. I took no pictures at the party because I was too busy having a good time but I am hoping someone else had the presence of mind to take a few. Eleven of the thirteen brothers and sisters were there, along with numerous nieces and nephews. There was much food, much talk and much laughter. Basically it went like this: six and a half hour trip; nine-hours of party; seven hours of sleep; six-hour trip home.

The drive was beautiful. Last weekend's heavy snow was still lingering in most places so the views were just spectacular. I took many photos as we whizzed along (Larry was not in a let's-stop-an-take-some-pictures-mood!). Here are few shots from the trip:


The melting snow led to some foggy conditions in the mountains:

Snow outlined the hills but the driver (Larry) was fortunately busy watching the road while I took photos.

Seneca Rocks was beautiful in its snow dressing, and fog obscuring the tops of the mountains behind the Rocks:
At Moorefield this mountain looked like Mount Olympia as it rose through the fog:

Homeward bound: Same mountain from a different angle on a clear day:

Again near Moorefield:
Crossing the South Branch of the Potomac (I think? George or Matthew, is this right?):

Frost rimed the trees as we neared Petersburg:

And so to home....what a beautiful state this is.

Storytelling Trip: Day 1

Thursday morning we were on the road. We had to stop at Belvie's farm to say hello to Darrell's mule. Larry loves this animal for some reason and will always stop and talk to it. I learned something: mules eat brush! This old guy was gnawing on raspberry and multiflora roses for breakfast. All that green grass, and he eats thorns.



We took our usual route, Rte 33, across the state to Rte 28. It's a two-lane highway (hello, Two-Lane Bloggin'!) and the trip can be slowed by trucks and local traffic, but it's beautiful and in the end doesn't take any longer than going around by the interstate. We stopped to use the facilities at a park and once again enjoyed



the incredible beauty of Seneca Rocks. There is actually a trail up the back of these rocks, and an observation deck at the top. During WWII the military trained troops here for rock-climbing.

There is a story connected with the rocks--romantic!

I noticed this rock wall along the river at the base of the rocks, and had to get a closer look. The river rocks are so smooth; whoever stacked this wall did a very good job. It may have been a CCC project, or it may have been built by a farmer who once owned the land the park now occupies.

You can sort of see how wide the wall is with my hand as an indicator. (Try taking a photo of your hand with a digital camera. It's weird. When you move your hand away, you still see the image in the camera). I would guess that the wall is about 3 feet across. That's a lot of rock, but the river has plenty.

Here the North Fork of the South Branch of the Potomac River rushes by. The river is shallow here, but very rapid and the blue-green color is something to see. This is trout season, so I expected to see some fisherman along the way.

And here he is, waist-deep in the water. I snapped this, as you can tell, as we drove by.

After a beautiful trip through the hills, we arrived at my son's house with plenty of time to visit and unpack, and get ready to go to our first storytelling site.