WV Trip, Day 6, Hawks and Crafts

Ward, Wally, Theo, and I are on a week's vacation in southern West Virginia. If you're interested, here's what we did on the previous days. Day One, Day Two, Day Three, Day Four. Day Five

On Monday, we headed north to Hawks Nest State Park, located near Anstead in Fayette County, WV. There, we got another look at the New River Gorge. 

The park has several parts, and we went first to the lodge. Behind the lodge, there was a short walk to an overlook.

This is one of the views from the overlook. You see the dam on the New River here that forms a 250-acre recreational lake.

As part of the lake project, a tunnel was dug through sandstone under Gauley Mountain to divert the New River's flow around the lake. This is so the river could be used for hydroelectric power. The silica dust inhaled by the workers caused a lung disease that killed most of them.

Then, we drove about a mile down the road for another overlook. Notice the bridge.

Here is a closer look at the same bridge. We drove down to the marina on a narrow, twisty dirt road with a steep drop-off on one side and massive rocks on the other. Now, I really felt like I was home in WV. 😀

From there, we hiked a rail trail that was an old spur line used
to transport coal from the mines to the main tracks. 

We took a spur off the main trail to find the entrance to the old Mill Creek Mine.
Theo is checking out what you can see inside - not much except a tunnel.

After the hike, we went back to the lodge for lunch. The food and the view
were great as we looked out over the gorge and mountains as we ate.

Then we headed south, back to Beckley, to visit Tamarack. Tamarack is a marketplace for West Virginia artisans. It is a circular building with pointed windows around the top, and the points represent a quilt piece.* Everything in here was juried and made in WV. (My mother once had her book sold in here.)

I was drawn to the quilts we saw.

Ward was interested in the woodworking products.
This is a fully-functioning chain saw made entirely out of wood!

Wally found stringed instruments made with kitchen things.
That's a cake pan, you see.

We all thought the freeze-dried products Theo found interesting.
That's a piece of freeze-dried Little Caesar's Pizza you see.

These flowers were made by someone who used to be our paperboy.

Then we ate Mexican for dinner, and soon enough, we were back to the Vrbo to pack and clean up. We left Tuesday morning for our ~7 hour trip home. We listened to Going Postal by Terry Pratchett, which made our uneventful drive home enjoyable. Today, we are regrouping and thinking about where our next trip will be. 

Until next time...

* I thought I heard or read that the peaks represent quilt pieces, but I can't seem to find that info now. So, I'm not sure about the design.