Well I must say its nice to be back on the mountain after spending the last 4 days and nights in the beautiful Shenandoah Valley nestled down between the beautiful blue mountains near the town of Woodstock, Va. which is around 30 miles from or so from the area I grew up called Mountain Falls. All of this area is rather close to the West Virginia line or should I say in the western part of Virginia. Only a mountain range separates the two states.
I've not mentioned a whole lot about our trip back to visit family but I'll digress a few starting with our Friday trip up the or really its down the valley to Woodstock. We are around 3000 feet here or so here in the mountains and the Winchester area is approximately 900 feet above sea level so when I say we traveled up the valley its really down to the valley, anyhow our trip was uneventful as usually Nancy freaks out with all of the truck trailer traffic on I-81. We traveled a back 2 lane road which took us through a small quaint hippy town of Floyd, Va. where we stopped briefly to walk as we try to do every hour hour and half. This scenic curvy road took us down Bent Mountain and into the Roanoke area where we stopped at a Chickfilet for lunch. Once again as with all of those franchises it was booming with patrons. We then headed north on I-81 and with it being a Friday I was surprised at how lite the traffic was northbound. We made a stop in Woodstock proper at the huge Walmart for some goodies before heading over to Dee and Mike's beautiful home on a huge 3 acre plot.
The next day(SAT) was the annual Gravel Springs Church picnic which took us close to the state line just over the mountain from W.Va. There we met us with many family members, long time old childhood friends of mine and some new old friends never seen in over 65 years, yeow was that ever a surprise. We ate our choice of chicken or country sugar cured ham dinner which of course Nancy doesn't care for and which I grew up on as we butchered and cured our own hogs for years. There was plenty to eat with home seasoned veggies as well as home made desserts. The blue grass band was entertaining a large crowd of folks sitting under the big oaks and a few of us entertained them with some dancing on the cement dance pad. Josie(oldest sister) did a few solo's as well on the dance floor. The weather was perfect for an outdoor picnic with no humidity and temps in the 70's with bright sunshine.
We stayed at that venue until nearly 5 before heading back to Woodstock with Paw Paw who would be spending the night with us and giving sister Pat the middle sister who is now his caretaker an evening off. Believe me he is becoming much like a child again with needing help and direction as well as constantly reminding him of certain things with his short term memory fading. We had a lite snack before he retired for the evening so Mike and Dee and us played some cards until bedtime. It was a grand day as we visited, ate and enjoyed the music through the afternoon.
We got ready Sunday morning and headed for our old home church at St.Johns where we once again hugged many necks and was greeted like vip's. We saw and spoke with many and did learn where several had passed on since we were last there two yers ago. The old cemetery had under gone some major renovations with all of the beautiful Maple trees removed as many were dying and becoming a hazard. We walked down in the cemetery and found JoAnn's( my aunt Paw Paw's wife) grave marker as well as many of our ancestors which we would later talk about at the Cousin Reunion being held at the other old church where many of my relatives are interned. Even back in those days they has family issues which caused husband, wife, mother and fathers to be interned in different cemeteries, oh well.
The reunion found us meeting for the first time many distant cousins which brought three major lines of families together for the first that I can ever remember; the Triplett's, the Bucher's and the Hodgsons with a few others not quite as represented as heavily as these three families; of course there were more Triplett's than most and I learned of several cousins I never knew how we were related. Dee along with a couple others have genealogy charts depicting the break down of the lineages and we met the great grand daughter who owns the land where a cemetery we visited a couple years ago deep in the woods and grown over is located. The graves are depicted only by stones with no names of who was buried there a couple hundred years ago. Very interesting to say the least and I often wonder how those pioneers made a living and raised such large families back in the days on those poor soil farms carved out of the woods which have now taken over the farms. Only stones in the ground tell others they once lived there.
Well the food was delicious at this reunion as well with family dishes and of course fried chicken which I think was bought at KFC. The desserts were rampart and Nancy's cheesecake was the first to go. I stayed away from the dessert table and opted for my favorite, another piece of chicken. We stayed there until late in the afternoon as many had to travel some distance. We are hoping to do this every year as we used the Ruitan Club building which is next door to the Mountain View Methodist Church cemetery. It's a very nice community building and accommodated our 75 folks or so easily. Many of us walked down through the cemetery before heading out and once again we put some names on the headstones together with the genealogy charts. My bio mom and grandmother are buried there but my bio grandfather is interned at St.John's along with Joann the woman who raised me from about 4 years old or so. She has been gone 20 years on the day we were there visiting.
Well Monday was a do nothing day except some sight seeing in the valley except we did pick up some meats from a large butchering facility which we bring back with us. This is some of the best sliced bacon ever. We drove along the old towns and saw some beautiful corn fields as agriculture is still prevalent in this area of the valley. It was once known as " the bread basket of the South" during the Civil War which was fought through out many locations we were traveling. Several huge battles were fought here in the 1860's and taking control of this region was a big prize in defeating the South.
Dee made delicious stuffed peppers from her garden for our supper and we enjoyed sliced tomato's throughout our stay as well as jalapeno's. Since they are leaving at the end of this week for two weeks I helped myself to their garden which will probably die before they get back. The best flavor of tomato's ever and I have some growing from their seeds in my garden as I write. Well we stopped at Wendy's in Hillsville for a lunch which basically satisfied me for the day with a chicken sandwich and some jalapeno bacon cheese fries. I know they probably were not the best for a protruding line of fat around the waist from some fine country eatin' but starting on Wednesday we are back to eating less carbs, desserts and bread, Oh well, LATER
Nancy forgot to charge her phone so we are limited on photos from both venues especially the reunion and I'm relying oh folks tagging me, SORRY
