A Sense of Place - Our Home for a Week

We are up in the Stuart Recreation Area of the Monongahela National Forest in West Virginia...renting a home on a mountain...about 5 miles from the nearest paved road...overlooking the Shavers Fork of the Cheat River...

Spring in West Virginia...like everywhere else...has been slow comin' especially compared to the early  Spring down here this time last year.  As you can see, the May Apple on the property is just starting to open their "umbrella tops."

...and leaves just starting to pop forth.  Things are further along down in Elkins, however, where the elevation is lower (photos to come from our photowalk we plan to take today).

Actually things looked a little "gnarly" up here on the mountain...stacks of tree branches everywhere and a lot of trees snapped in two. (Actually this scene isn't too bad because I didn't take ones of the really bad areas...this was on our property...but you can see piles of branches to the right...).

West Virginia folks are folksy...especially when they don't think you're here trying to take advantage of their wealth of natural resources.  History has taught them a hard cruel lesson about quickly trusting outsiders...

(Photo courtesy of New York Daily News)

Yesterday...as we traveled down the mountain...we ran into a WVDOT worker running a grater continuing to clean up the road from debris.  I yelled out the window, "Hey...I gotta question."  He turned off his motor and said, "Yes, ma'am?"  "What happened up here?"  "Ever hear of a storm called Sandy?"  (I love the sound of a West Virginian voice...hard to believe my parents worked to hard to lose their drawls to assimilate into northeast Ohio.)

And then I recalled national TV reporters broadcasting from Elkins...and did some "review" on the internet...how soon we forget.  Talk about a change of perspective...now I appreciated the survival of those among the remnants of that perfect storm...

I'll be the first to tell you...it is hard to get photos of a place before the Edster starts putting luggage and bags and jackets on every empty flat surface within 3 seconds.  But I did grab this quickie of this long table for eating (beautiful without the pads on).

And next to the phone on the counter in the kitchen is the gentle warning sign...

This is the main living area...and while there is a flatscreen TV...there is NO cable...thank God!

And yet there were games...where you could find out it was the maid in the library with the candlestick who did it...

And a large variety of DVDs...but Deliverance?  How stereotypical! (smile)  Okay I confess:  We brought along about a dozen DVDs ourselves which DID include The Hatfields & McCoys miniseries...

And somebody likes Oprah...(that's one of Arthur's toys in front)...

And there were three bathrooms...this one with a huge jacuzzi tub.  This entire house is filled with light, many windows and many skylights from all the ceilings...

And a variety of little details...but let me take you outside...

The deck/porch wraps around the entire home...with ample sitting room...overlooking the property and Shavers Fork...

And a walkway...leading across a swampy area filled with skunk cabbage into a spacious grassy areas along the riverbank...

And here's the view from there...(okay, I struggled with aligning this photo -- do I make the roofline straight or the deckline straight...obviously I couldn't do both...I chose roof.)

Then this gorgeous river, which I might add...

Arthur unknowingly explored...

But he dried out in the end...no worse for wear...loving his bone...

I've only scratched the surface of our wonder home away from home and hope to grab some more photos before we leave...

...but I hope this gives you a sense of place.